ACT 33: Be Careful What You Wish For
by Galaxy1001D
Summary: When a crime boss kidnaps Dorothy to force Roger to do his bidding, the negotiator finds himself on the trail of a beautiful mad scientist. THE BIG O: SEASON THREE
1. Zeke Crater

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Cast in the name of God!_

**Negotiator**

_Ye not the guilty!_

**Android**

_We have come to terms!_

**Butler**

_Big-O!_

**Officer**

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! -O! -O! Big-O!_

_Chapter One: Zeke Crater_

_This is Paradigm City. Over forty years ago every human and every robot lost all _knowledge_ on what had happened prior. But humans are adaptable creatures. If they're smart enough to figure out how to get electricity, they can still have a civilization. For those who live here, the past is a tantalizing mystery that beckons us backwards to a starting point we can't even remember. _

_But you can't get the past back. You'll go crazy trying. Your best bet is to do what you can to keep what you have and plan for the future. But some of us can't resist the futile struggle to recover what we lost, even if what we lost isn't worth it._

Paradigm City was a wreck. Once huge geodesic domes covered entire neighborhoods separating the rich from the poor under artificial skies but now those domes were broke open like massive eggshells. Construction crews were working overtime to repair the damage to the city, but they'd be at it for years before they made any headway. The question was, would they build a new city out of the wreckage of the old or would they simply rebuild the city that once was?

Walking down the cracked sidewalk past damaged brownstone buildings was a slender young girl. The petite teenager was dressed in a reddish black dress that had a white ruffled collar and formal white cuffs. A set of black stockings and shiny black shoes completed her ensemble. Her red pageboy haircut was immaculate, her bangs broken by a black barrette. Her skin was alabaster white, her features were dainty and her dark violet eyes were mysterious.

As the girl passed a construction site she paused when a bulldozer moved out and blocked the sidewalk. An electronic whirring sound could be heard when she turned to see a large delivery truck pull up behind her and block as much of the street as possible. The back doors opened and a large robot that had to be over ten feet tall crawled out and lumbered towards her. The metallic gray robot was vaguely anthropomorphic, but its proportions were wrong, giving it the appearance of being built from cinder blocks. Its tiny faceless head had only two lenses for eyes and a grill appeared to be a mouth. Its large barrel shaped body combined with its massive hands and feet gave the metal giant a gorilla like appearance as it lumbered towards the girl with deadly purpose.

The girl frowned and turned to take off running but found that multiple bulldozers had moved to block the street. The girl gave a gasp of frustration as she trotted left and right before making a heroic leap into the air. The jump was spectacular. She cleared over eight feet when her leg was seized by the robot plodding up behind her.

* * *

><p><em>My name is Roger Smith, I perform a necessary job here in the city of amnesia<em>, _but right now I'm working for myself. I've always said that the here and now are more important than the forgotten past, but right now I find myself searching for my lost Memories just like every other obsessed self-destructive fool in this town._

The working class bar known as the Speakeasy wasn't in a good neighborhood. Even before the battle that shattered the domes the Speakeasy was located in what could be called the 'rough part of town'. Now the rest of the city didn't look any better and the building seemed to be radiating a certain smugness. Parked in front was a long vehicle sized object covered in black metal. To the naked eye, what the armored shell was and what it was doing there was a mystery. To the regulars, it was a familiar piece of the scenery.

Inside, between the bar and the pool table two men sat in wooden chairs placed against the wall. The one on the left was an old man reading a newspaper. The one on the right was a young man in a black suit nursing a bottle of beer.

"Remember that job I sent you on last month?" The young man peeked at his comrade from under his sunglasses.

"Which one?" the old man peered at his newspaper through his gold tinted glasses.

"The one where I wanted you to research the past of one Roger Smith," the young man put a black gloved hand on his clean shaven chin and leaned against a small table placed next to his chair.

"Well," the old man snorted as he scratched the grayish brown beard that obscured his face. "I should have thought you'd lose interest Roger."

"Just tell me what you found out," the young man grumbled.

"Roger Smith. Estimated age, thirty five," the old man said as if he was reading from a list. "Joined the Military Police thirteen years ago but resigned after five. Disappeared afterwards only to reappear with a private trust fund and the deed to an old bank building that happens to be his current address. Currently working as a professional negotiator. Natural parents died when he was five. Adopted by wealthy foster parents at age nine. Well educated. Athletic. No living family. No personal attachments, unless you count Colonel Dan Datsun his old boss that is currently the temporary head of the military police and his butler Norman Burg who is one of the few people alive to have been an adult before the great amnesia erased everybody's memories. He adopted an android named R Dorothy Wayneright a year and a half ago. Am I missing anything?"

"I already knew _that_," Roger sighed. "Got anything new for me?"

"I heard from someone who used to work for the Union that they once captured a man who insisted his name was Roger Smith," the old man smiled as he went back to his newspaper. "My source claims that a man fitting your description was abducted eight years go and forced to join their society. He resisted until he finally disappeared. My source assumed that 'Roger Smith' was killed until he came to Paradigm City and heard about you. He never got around to looking you up to see if you're the same man. Ring any bells?"

"I don't recall leaving Paradigm City, and I'd certainly remember if I went to another country," Roger muttered. "Got anything more definite?"

"So far I haven't found your birth certificate," the old man admitted. "As a matter of fact I haven't found any record about your parents aside from the year they died. Naturally there's no record of when they married or where they were born, what with the big amnesia and the loss of all records. Things were chaotic back in those days, Roger. There wasn't a real society yet. Your lack of birth records really isn't that unusual…" the old man's voice trailed off.

"No, it isn't," Roger agreed. At that moment, an electronic beeping noise was heard. The old man glanced at Roger who shrugged. "Excuse me; I've got to get this," Roger smiled as he pressed a button his wristwatch and the face of the watch became a tiny monochrome screen. "What is it, Norman?"

The tiny image was the face of a bald old man with a handlebar mustache wearing an eyepatch over his left eye. "Master Roger, so sorry to interrupt you, but a young lady has arrived and she wishes to speak with you."

"I'll be right home," Roger smiled. He turned to look at his bearded companion in the bar. "Sorry about that. Duty calls."

"Take your time," the old man smiled. He saluted with his drink as Roger left and walked to the entrance.

Once outside the bar Roger pulled a tiny remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button. The armored plating on the long black box before him folded in on itself to reveal a long black '59 Cadillac. He paused to look at his reflection in the window. The old man said that Roger's 'estimated age' was thirty-five, but the reflection staring back at him appeared a decade younger. Until this year he had never found fault with his appearance. His broad shoulders and trim waist indicated both strength and agility. His jet-black hair, strong jaw and high cheekbones on his boyish face made him the definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome'. He was clad in a black suit consisting of black double-breasted jacket, matching trousers, shoes and gloves. His shirt was crisp and white and his black tie was bisected by a gray stripe. Opaque black sunglasses hid his eyes from few. Physically, he was perfect, the envy of men everywhere. But who—or what—was he really?

Roger didn't have much time to ponder that question because two burly men wearing pinstripe suits and fedoras walked up behind him.

"Roger Smith?" One of them asked in a tough Brooklyn accent.

"Who wants to know?" Roger asked as he turned to face them.

"We do," the man said in a curt threatening voice as he pulled a revolver out of his coat. "Our boss wants to hire you, and he doesn't like being kept waiting. Walk."

"I don't like being kidnapped. He got a problem with that?" Roger quipped as he walked in front of the two hoodlums.

"As a matter of fact he does," the gunman said as they approached a dark blue sedan parked at the end of the block. A third tough dressed in a pinstripe suit and fedora just like his fellows opened the rear door facing the sidewalk. "Get in," their spokesman said as his companion grasped the back of Roger's head to push him into the car.

"So killer, shot anyone lately?" Roger quipped as the three muscle-bound kidnappers got in the vehicle with him and started the car.

As the blue sedan pulled away from the curb the kidnapper in the backseat with Roger said "Nope, but the day ain't over yet."

"Keep your shirt on, Smith," the gunman in the front seat who wasn't driving turned to speak to him. "Mister Crater has a little business proposition for you, that's all."

"What's with snatching me off the street at gunpoint, then?" Roger grumbled.

"Mister Crater doesn't like to be kept waiting," the gangster grunted.

"'Crater'?" Roger repeated. "As in 'Zeke the Geek' Crater? The most notorious racketeer in Paradigm City?"

"That's the one, Mister Negotiator," the mobster in the front seat smiled, "but I wouldn't call him 'Geek Crater' to his face."

"I'm not going to work for a lowlife like Zeke Crater," Roger frowned. "Tell him to not to waste his time and crawl right back in the sewer he came from."

"That's the spirit Negotiator, get it out of your system," the kidnapper in the front seat snickered. "You don't wanna talk like that when you see the boss."

* * *

><p><em>The dive they drove me to squatted on a muddy bank overlooking the harbor. The place looked like half past midnight in the afternoon. The dark structure had a flickering neon sign that identified it as the Sailor's Club. Well, if I was a sailor, and I wanted someone to club me I couldn't ask for a better place to have it happen. <em>

_Inside the Sailor's Club, the bar and the stage area was a broad L-shaped room decorated in a seedy nautical style. The bar itself was decorated with ancient torn fishing nets draped with old cobwebs. Even the spiders had given up on the décor, letting it fend for itself. A large ship's wheel with several missing pins leaned in one corner and the floor was coated with a thick gray-green mulch of beer-soaked sawdust, just the thing to soak up vomit from overindulgence or blood from a bar fight. Tending the bar was a young man who eyed me as if I was a delivery made by mistake and he couldn't decide if he was supposed to keep me or send me back. The bouncer at the door was just short of humongous but significantly bigger than huge. He looked at me with an irritated look that indicated that I was too small and that he'd have to toss me back. It wasn't his call, and I could see the disappointment in his eyes._

"Wait here," the spokesman for of the three abductors said as they led him to a table. "I'll see if the boss is ready for you."

"Sure thing killer," Roger called as the hoodlum disappeared to the back office. "Hurry back." He glowered at the two burly men sitting at the table with him. "So boys, _eat_ any good books lately?" The two gangsters refused to comment.

Soon the first gangster returned. "Mister Crater will see you now."

"And if I don't want to see _him_?" Roger snarled.

"Little late for that," the crook shrugged good-naturedly. "You can walk in or be carried it makes no difference to me."

Roger followed the gangster through an abandoned kitchen that had been turned into a storeroom for contraband and through a door leading into a back office. The only window to the room was shuttered and a floor lamp pushed up behind a desk provided illumination. "Here's the negotiator boss," the kidnapper said.

Sitting behind a large desk covered with scraps of paper and soiled ledgers was a man who was apparently ready to leave at a moment's notice. The man known as Zeke Crater wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his features and an expensive suit that was barely visible beneath his flowing black cape. He seemed to be in excellent health, judging by his smooth, unblemished complexion. "Siddown," he rumbled fixing Roger with large unblinking eyes that were mostly inky black pupils. "We got a lot to discuss. You might as well make yourself comfortable."

Roger frowned as he sat in the plush chair in front of the desk and squinted at his host. "Zeke Crater?"

"That's me," the man behind the desk snorted. "You Roger Smith?"

"Yes, what's this all about?" Roger nodded as he studied Ezekiel Crater. With the curtains drawn across the shuttered window and that wide brimmed hat blocking the single light source, it was hard to make out Crater's face. The underworld kingpin seemed to have a remarkably smooth waxy complexion for a man in his forties. More alarming were the bulges under the crime lord's suit around the area of his ribs. Apparently Crater had multiple weapons concealed on his person.

"There's a woman I want you to find, Mister Smith," Crater told him. "And after you find her I want you to negotiate with her. She's got something I want, and I want you to get if for me _capiche_?"

"What am I negotiating for?" Roger said as he squinted in the darkness to study Crater closely. He had been tempted to dismiss the crime boss as an imposter. He certainly didn't look like the pictures from the Military Police's files, even if it _had_ been eight years since Roger looked at them. Crater's features were waxen, and oddly immobile. His motions were quick, but oddly stiff and clumsy. It was like the man behind the desk was a cunning life sized puppet or something. Could Zeke 'the Geek' Crater be an android? Or was he a cyborg, part machine like Alan Gabriel?

"The lady in question is a scientist and has created a serum that I find myself in the market for," the strange crime boss told him. "Don't worry, she knows what I want. I want you to find her and get her to give me what I want. Do it promptly and I'll make it worth your while."

"And just who am I looking for?" Roger frowned. Did one of the bulges under Crater's suit just _move_? It couldn't be, it had to be a trick of the light. No wait! Another of the bulges Roger assumed were concealed weapons twitched. If the past year had made Roger doubt his own humanity, his worries were peanuts compared to those of Ezekiel Crater!

"You're looking for a dame who goes by the name of Jenny Grant," the crime lord told him. "She and I used to see each other before we had our little falling out. Now she's got something of mine and I want it back. And you're going to make sure I get what's coming to me, or else you won't like what will be coming to _you_. I know that once you take a job you always see it through, so you don't get to leave this room until I hear you say you'll take it. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear, Mister Crater," Roger sneered. "You've used payoffs and intimidation so often you can't negotiate a deal any other way, and that's going to cost you. Whatever your business is with Miss Grant, I don't want anything to do with it. One of the bonuses to being self-employed is that I get to be my own boss and choose whether I take a job or not. Sorry Mister Crater. No Deal. Breaking my legs won't get you what you want and neither will making me disappear. If someone lacks courtesy and sincerity I ask them to leave but since this is _your _establishment, I'll show myself out. Good day." Roger rose from his chair but was stopped by the gangster's low chuckle.

Despite the sardonic laughter erupting from Zeke Crater, the expression on the gangster's face remained unchanged. It was as if he was wearing an uncannily realistic mask. "Siddown, Mister Smith. We ain't done. Miss Grant has a commodity that belongs to me, and I got something that belongs to _you_. If you want it back you'll sit down and listen."

"What could you possibly have that belongs to me?" Roger snarled.

"That pretty little android girl you live with," Crater shrugged causing the bulges under his suit to twitch. "If you ever want to see her again you'll pipe down and do as I say."

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: An Offer You Can't Refuse _


	2. An Offer You Can't Refuse

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Two: An Offer You Can't Refuse_

"What?" Roger growled as he leaned forward to place his hands on the oversized desk. "You monster! If you've harmed one hair on her head…!"

The gangster behind Roger pushed him back into the chair. "Siddown Smith, the boss ain't done talkin' yet," the hoodlum sneered.

"As I was saying," Zeke Crater continued. "Jenny Grant's got something I want, and I got something _you_ want. You can play it easy or hard; I don't care. Just get me Jenny Grant, _capiche_?"

"Where's Dorothy?" Roger snapped.

"Safe and sound at home if you listen to me," Zeke Crater purred, "otherwise the boys and I will get out our tool kits and find out what makes her tick. And if you talk to your friends in the military police you'll _never_ get her back, except maybe in little pieces, get me?"

"You animal, what do you want from Jenny Grant anyway?" Roger sneered.

"Like I said, a she has a serum that I'm going to get ahold of," Crater said as he squirmed under his flowing black cape, "with or without your help, get me? And for your android's sake it better be with. Do as you're told and you'll get her back and maybe some dough if you do it quick enough. There's no point arguing, Smith. This is an offer you can't refuse. Now go find Jenny Grant. Time's a wastin'." He nodded to his cohort who seized Roger by the shoulders to drag him to his feet.

"And that means get a move on… Hey!" The henchman's words were lost as Roger seized his arm and flipped him over his shoulder. When the gunman hit the floor, Roger kicked at his arm. A revolver skidded across the floor.

The fallen crook reached for his pistol, but Roger stepped on his hand. ""Stay there," the negotiator ordered before turning to the crime boss. "Mister Crater I'm a dangerous man to threaten. For your sake I hope that when I find Jennifer Grant you return Dorothy Wayneright in the condition you found her in. Otherwise I can't guarantee your safety."

Crater's waxen, unnaturally smooth face didn't change its neutral expression but his voice had a threatening edge. "You_ are_ a piece of work, you know that? Keep talking that and _you're_ the one who'll be worrying about his safety."

"Take a pill, Crater," Roger said as he lifted his foot off the fallen lackey's hand. "You win. I'm off to do your dirty work, so knock it off. Just remember what I said about Dorothy Wayneright. Her safety is essential to your survival. Let anything happen to her and I'll flatten you _and_ this crummy dive and scrape you off the bottom of my shoe." He turned to leave the darkened office. "Have a good day, Mister Crater. I say that only as a matter of form."

As Roger walked out it was impossible to tell what Zeke Crater was thinking. The crime boss' immobile face was obscured by the wide brimmed hat that blocked the only light source and his large black unblinking eyes were almost all pupil.

Although on the outside Roger was walking defiantly through the bar and out of the Sailor's Club inside he was kicking himself. What had he been thinking threatening Crater like that? If Crater didn't punish Roger he would certainly punish Dorothy.

The negotiator fiddled with his watch as he reached the sidewalk. He looked left and right and saw a rundown neighborhood in the wharf district. Not exactly the safest place to look for a taxi. It got a lot less safe when the doors to the shady bar opened and the huge hulking bouncer walked out followed by the gangster Roger had assaulted in Crater's office.

"Hey Smith, turn around," the bruised gangster growled as he slid a set of brass knuckles over his hand. "You an' me got unfinished business. Nobody makes a monkey out of me Negotiator. The boss says for right now you gotta stay healthy, but he didn't say you gotta keep all your teeth. Turn around and take your whuppin' like a good boy and it'll be over with fast. You're about to find out why they call me 'Knuckles' McGee."

"Mister McGee please don't make me angry," Roger gave an exasperated sigh without turning around. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"That's okay, I don't like you now… Oof!" the gangster moved toward Roger but fell backwards when Roger turned and hit him with a blow that the negotiator put the weight of his body into. Stunned, 'Knuckles' McGee rolled his eyes and dropped to the ground.

As the gangster collapsed Roger seized the bouncer's ears to pull him down to eye level. "Carry him back in before they have to find someone to carry _you_," Roger said in a low voice nose to nose with the huge apelike bouncer. The bouncer looked into Roger's steely eyes and nodded. Roger pushed the bouncer backwards before turning to glare at the street. The bouncer rubbed his ears and picked up his companion and went back inside.

As Roger waited, he silently fumed. If only Roger hadn't said he would take the job! But he had no choice. If he didn't, he could expect pieces of Dorothy to be mailed to him to show they meant business. Once Roger took a job, he always saw it through, but he had taken the job to protect Dorothy too, and that job came first.

Roger briefly fantasized beating Dorothy's location out of Crater and dismissed the idea. Dorothy wasn't on the premises. Roger was outnumbered. And there was something unnatural about Zeke Crater, it was possible that he was half man, half machine the way Alan Gabriel was. Maybe he could defeat such a creature alone, but beating a cyborg that had backup was a tall order.

Roger clenched his fists. Crater had caught him at a bad time. For the past year he had been hallucinating, getting strange symbolic visions that represented the past. For a while the negotiator had hoped he had conquered his demons but they were back with a vengeance and Roger finally decided that the only way to banish them was to investigate his forgotten past and learn what really happened forty years ago. And now some stupid punk had to kidnap Dorothy, the one person who had somehow managed to keep him sane!

Was he in love with Dorothy Wayneright? Preposterous! He was a human and she was an android. His estimated age was thirty-five and hers was less than two years. Roger never had a problem with dating younger girls in the past, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

And yet… He had stopped chasing women ever since she moved into his house, even before he started doubting his identity and suffering strange visions. Was he being discreet in the presence of a minor or had he subconsciously found the girl he wanted? Why hadn't he kissed the beautiful woman who called herself 'Angel' that night by the seashore? It wasn't like he ever promised Dorothy anything. Why did he plan to get Dorothy a present next Heaven's Day when according to tradition you only buy a present for the one you love?

Right now it made no difference. It was time to take a page from Dorothy's book and repress his feelings. He was better off acting like an android instead of a human. Right now his emotions would just get in the way. Dorothy needed him to treat this as just another ransom case. If he wasn't careful, his love for the android might get her killed.

The long black Cadillac that he had left parked in front of the Speakeasy rolled up to the curb and the driver's door opened to reveal that the car was empty. Roger got in and drove off, his mind racing. Back to the Speakeasy, he supposed. If he couldn't talk to Colonel Dastun he might as well talk to Big Ear and see what he could find out.

* * *

><p>Soon Roger's car was back at the working man's bar known as the Speakeasy. Before he went in Roger's black-gloved hand flicked a switch and removed a microphone from the dashboard. A black and white television screen filled with static before clearing into an image of Norman's face. "Yes, Master Roger?" asked the attentive butler.<p>

"Norman is Dorothy there?" Roger asked over the microphone.

"I'm afraid not sir," the elderly butler apologized. "She left to do some errands and hasn't returned yet."

"Let me know the minute she comes back," Roger ordered. "If that young lady is still there, tell her I won't be in today. I've taken another job and I don't know how long it's going to take."

"Is there a problem sir?" Norman asked.

"That depends," Roger sighed.

"Depends on what sir?"

"On whether or not Dorothy comes home," Roger grunted.

Roger exited the car and pulled a tiny box out of his pocket. When he pressed a button the Cadillac rose on a sturdy jack as ebony armor plating unfolded from hidden compartments and covered the car. Soon the car was a black rectangular shell again; it was as if he never left. Roger looked both ways down the street before he entered the bar and took his seat next to the elderly informant he had nicknamed 'the Big Ear'.

"Back so soon negotiator?" the old man quipped as he looked up from his newspaper. He noticed the icy glare in Roger's eyes. "What's with the mood?"

"I'm in a hurry, so let's leave out the chit-chat," Roger growled as he placed a wad of twenties on Big Ear's table. "Zeke Crater," he grunted as he took a seat near Big Ear. "Tell me about him."

Without further comment on Roger's attitude Big Ear rattled off data on the crime boss. "Zeke 'the Geek' Crater. Took over the city's rackets after the disappearance of his predecessor, 'Fat' Tony Gerardo. These days 'Geek' Crater has his hand in any organized crime that's too small for the Paradigm Group to bother with. Zeke 'the Geek' is also known as Paradigm City's original party animal. He's the kind of guy who'll tell you that crime pays and then go on to prove it by going out every night, drinking champagne and entertaining the kind of women that your mother warned you about. When he hit the big time he bought a house up the coast and hosted parties so wild that the devil himself would make an excuse and leave early. Rumor had it that he got his nickname by biting the heads off chickens as he drank champagne right out of the bottle."

"He looks different lately," Roger smirked as he snapped his fingers for the bartender to bring him a drink. "I take it he's not Paradigm City's 'party animal' anymore. What happened?"

"For the past few months he's been a recluse," Big Ear told him. "Shortly after your friend Datsun was reinstated Crater disappeared for about a month. When he resurfaced, he wasn't looking too good and was hobbling around. He's still running the business but he doesn't get out like he used to. Nobody's seen him with any women either. Rumor has it that he's sick and might pass away soon."

"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Roger smiled grimly as the burly bartender walked over and handed him a bottle of his favorite beer. He opened the bottle and took a sip. "Ever hear of a Jennifer Grant?"

"If she has any connection with Crater you must be referring to Jenny Grant, Ezekiel Crater's last lady friend," the old man grunted as he turned the page of his newspaper. "Crater liked to play the field but Jenny Grant was the only woman you could consider a steady girlfriend. Bright, well educated. A scientist who worked for the Paradigm Group before her brother's actions brought scandal upon the family. After she broke up with Crater she went underground."

"A scientist eh?" Roger mused as people at a nearby pool table started a game. Didn't Crater say she was a scientist? At the time, Roger hadn't been paying attention. "What kind of scientist?"

"She's known as an alchemist," Big Ear told him. "She must be some lady to be Zeke Crater's girl but if you want my advice you'll stay away from her. Rumor has it she's into some strange stuff. I think you're familiar with her older brother, the late Eugene Grant."

"Eugene?" Roger gasped. The image of a silver haired grinning maniac flying an armored airplane gunning down a married couple on his rooftop balcony flashed before his eyes. "Eugene Grant? The mad scientist who turned living people into rare animals before changing them into twisted monsters? The one who kidnapped Dorothy and turned her kitten into a lumbering behemoth? _That_ Eugene Grant?"

"That's the one," Big Ear nodded. "And his little sister is just as talented in life sciences as he was. The only difference was that she isn't a total maniac."

"She can't be a better person judging from her choice of friends," Roger grunted. "Between Alex Rosewater and Zeke Crater she keeps pretty bad company. Where can I find her?"

"Rumor has it that she left town and bought a house in Electric City," the old man rumbled. "Sounds like the breakup she had with Crater was pretty ugly."

"Could be _really_ ugly," Roger nodded as he thought of Zeke Crater's strange appearance. If her brother could turn a little boy into a kitten what could a scorned woman do to her ex-boyfriend? Crater's interest in Jenny Grant and her 'serum' was pretty obvious now. Problem was, if Roger was right, Crater would stop at nothing. "Electric City, eh? That's quite a drive. Looks like I'll have to pack an overnight bag," the negotiator said as he rose to his feet. "Thanks."

"Good luck." The old man saluted Roger with his drink.

Outside Roger deactivated the car's armor and got in. "I'm coming home Norman," he said into a microphone attached to the dashboard by a curly black wire. "Pack my overnight bag and fix me an early supper. I'll explain when I get there."

"Very good Master Roger," the monochrome image of his butler said on the television screen on his dashboard. "Everything will be ready when you get home."

* * *

><p>Roger had a quick supper as Norman packed the Cadillac for an overnight trip. Soon Roger has driving down the streets of Paradigm City with a cooler full of sandwiches and drinks.<p>

In the aftermath of the recent attacks on Paradigm City, there weren't very many automobiles still in operation, so it didn't take long for Roger to spot a tail. A grey sedan was following him, remaining half a block away. It slowed down when he slowed down and sped up when he sped up. Looking through his rearview mirror he could see two men wearing fedoras in the front seats of the tailing car.

Roger took a deep breath and pulled over. The car passed him and Roger recognized the man in passenger seat as one of the men who abducted him earlier that day. Roger shut his eyes and practiced his breathing exercises while he waited. Sure enough the gray car had circled the block and where driving up behind him again. They parked at the curb about six car lengths behind him but didn't get out. Crater was having him followed and wasn't bothering to hide it.

Fine. If Crater didn't have to be subtle neither did Roger. Roger got out of his car and strode over to the grey car and tapped on the driver's window.

"Something I can do for you friend?" the driver asked defiantly as he rolled down his window.

"Did Crater send you two to spy on me?" Roger smiled, knowing the answer.

"Spying is such a harsh word," the driver smirked. "He just wants to know that you're spending your time wisely, that's all."

"Don't worry, I am," Roger nodded. "Miss Grant must be pretty hard to find if he needs to call me in. Crater must be convinced that I'm the only one who can find her. Be a shame if something happened to me."

"Don't worry about protection, Mister Smith, we got your back," the driver chuckled. His friend in the passenger seat laughed too.

"I'm not," the negotiator grinned. "I'm more worried about you guys. I can be a dangerous guy to follow. Wouldn't want you to get hurt. Still, I bet to your boss my safety is more important than yours right now."

"Don't worry about us Mister Smith," the gangster chuckled. "Nothin's gonna happen to us."

"I don't know," Roger scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. "The last guys I caught following me like this ended up in the hospital. Be a shame if the same thing happened to you."

The two gangsters in the car laughed obnoxiously. So did Roger. He took off his sunglasses and wiped his eyes as he slipped the dark glasses into his pocket.

"That's pretty funny," said the gangster in the passenger seat.

"Who said I was joking?" Roger growled all pretense at levity gone. With his left hand he seized the driver's tie and his right fist went right up the driver's nose. The driver sputtered and struggled after that so Roger hit him again until he fell silent. The gangster in the passenger seat pulled an automatic pistol out of his jacket and got out of the car. Roger reached into his own jacket and extracted a small flat bladed plate of metal the employees of Yoshifuda Yakamoto Industries would call a 'shuriken' and tossed it at the gunman in a snappy backhand throw. The small bladed weapon cut the gangster's fingers, causing him to drop his pistol.

"Tell your boss I work alone," Roger snarled. The crook reached into his jacket to pull out a switchblade but Roger disarmed him with a second shuriken. "Looks like someone's hard of hearing," Roger said as he advanced on the gangster. The gangster turned and ran down the street.

Roger watched him for a moment before he picked up the knife and poked a hole in the grey sedan's tire. "You should really fix this," he sneered as he turned and marched back to his Cadillac.

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: Jenny Grant_


	3. Jenny Grant

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. Additional material by Howard Phillip Lovecraft. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Three: Jenny Grant_

The girl was blindfolded with her arms tied behind her back. She was riding in the backseat with two men on either side of her. They told her if she tried anything she would be shot and she had no reason to disbelieve them. The car she was in drove for some time until the noises of the city were no longer heard. The sounds of the city might have escaped her hearing but the noise of the ocean didn't, even over the noise of the car. They must have been driving along the coast.

She could hear the other occupants of the car conversing. Men's voices, rough voices, talking tough to conceal their uncertainties.

"So this is Dorothy Wayneright, Knuckles?" asked the man sitting to the left of her.

"_R_ Dorothy Wayneright, Trigger," the man on her right corrected. "She's not a real girl, she's an android."

"You'd never know by lookin' at her," said the man on her left. "She looks so real. Whoever built her broke the mold. I've never seen uh android so lifelike."

"Me either but she's an android all right. She looks just like a teenage girl doesn't she? Cute little redhead. Pretty enough to be a cheerleader."

"So how real is she? I mean, does she got anything under her skirt or is she like a doll or somethin'?"

"I dunno Trigger. I never played with dolls."

"You know what I mean. Look how real she is. There's only one reason someone would build something that looked like a real girl. Think about it."

"It takes all kinds, don't it Trigger?"

"Why do you think the boss wants her at his place anyway Knuckles?"

"Beats me, Trig. I just do what I'm told."

"I thought this android dame was supposed to be a hostage to get the negotiator to do what he wants."

"Yeah? So?"

"None of the other girls we took to Crater's beach house survived the night. I thought after the negotiator finds Jenny Grant we were supposed to give her back."

"Looks like it won't be workin' out that way, Trigger," the man on her right laughed. "The negotiator doesn't want to play ball. The boss figures that after we return the Wayneright dame he'll go straight to the military cops. I hear he's friends with the guy Paradigm put in charge of 'em."

"That's too bad for the android but at least she ain't a real gal like all the others," the gangster called 'Trigger' mused. "Say, did the negotiator hurt yuh bad when he messed up your face, Knuckles?"

"Shaddap Trigger." Dorothy felt the gangster known as 'Knuckles' lean against her but heard a slapping noise from where Trigger's face should be.

"Ouch!" Trigger fidgeted and Dorothy felt his elbow brush against her. He must have been rubbing his face with his left hand. "Ya don't gotta get sore, Knuckles."

"The hell I don't, Trigger," Knuckles growled.

"I ain't the one who messed up your face," Trigger protested. "Take it easy. When it's time to pay off the negotiator, take it out on _him_."

"Oh don't you worry," Knuckles muttered. "I'll take great pleasure in doin' that."

* * *

><p>The trip to Electric City took Roger the rest of the day. The further away from Paradigm City he got the greener the countryside became. By the time he got to Electric City the sun had set and the land was covered by trees. Roger was alert for a tail, but when the sun dipped low in the west he noticed sunlight shining off something in the road ahead of him. No matter how long he drove he never caught up with it, but when the sun dipped below the horizon he thought he could see some kind of light every so often.<p>

Was there another vehicle on the road miles ahead of him? Did that mean that Zeke Crater had the same clue as Roger did? If Zeke Crater found Jenny Grant before Roger did, he would probably kill both Roger and Dorothy. Roger's performance at the Sailor's club practically guaranteed it. Roger had to find Miss Grant first to get a bargaining chip.

_I told myself that I had assaulted those goons Crater had following me because it was the smart thing to do, not because I was angry at them for kidnapping Dorothy and I wanted to get back at them. If those two hoods were there when I found Jenny Grant, Crater wouldn't need me __or__ Dorothy alive and healthy anymore. Tactically speaking, beating them senseless was the right thing to do. _

_By the time I got to Electric City I almost believed it._

_It was dark by the time I reached Electric City. The town was a community located up the Hudson River, inhabited by refugees who decided they had enough of Paradigm. Located on the edge of a lake created by a gigantic defunct hydroelectric dam, the residents of Electric City let all that potential power go to waste and relied on gaslights and lanterns._

_Refugees had been pouring into Electric City after Big Fau and the Union almost took Paradigm City apart a few months back. A few enterprising souls actually started converting buildings into hotels and so finding a place to stay the night wasn't an issue. The next day I was up bright and early asking around for Miss Grant. The locals wouldn't admit that anyone with that name moved here recently but the color of my money did jog one local's memory about a woman who bought the old Belington's Mansion on the old Windham Road outside of town. She was receiving a lot of deliveries from Paradigm and that made her memorable. When he saw the cement mixer, my informant wondered if she was going to open a factory. Whatever she was doing it needed a lot of renovation._

* * *

><p>The Black Cadillac drove up the lonely road through the forested hills outside Electric City. Four decades of close proximity to the Hudson River had allowed the ecosystem to recover from whatever devastated the world forty years ago.<p>

_The countryside up the old Windham road is a lonely and curious country. The ground gets higher, and the brier bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wilder weds, brambles, and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation. Without knowing why, I hesitated to ask for directions from the gnarled, solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures seemed so silent and furtive that I felt somehow confronted by things best avoided. _

_Presently the old Windham road led into the primeval forest. The ancient, lightning-scarred trees seemed unnaturally large and twisted, and the other vegetation unnaturally thick and feverish, while curious mounds and hummocks in the weedy, fulgurite-pitted earth reminded me of snakes and dead men's skulls swelled up to gigantic proportions. Eventually the road ended at a rusty gate. Behind it I could see the drive and a crumbling two story house hidden behind a hideously overgrown garden. _

Roger pulled over to the side of the road and got out of his car. He walked over to the gate and was studying the chain with the shiny new padlock when he heard the sound of a car coming up the road behind him. Roger quickly ducked back behind the Cadillac before deciding to crouch behind some bushes. He had been followed and like an amateur he led them straight to Jenny Grant's place.

The grey sedan that had followed him yesterday pulled to a stop and two men in pinstripe suits and fedoras got out and approached Roger's car. One of them was about Roger's size but the other one was as big as the Sailor's Club's bouncer. They frowned at the Cadillac while pulling pistols out of their jackets.

"This is the negotiator's car all right," said the one roughly Roger's size. "This must be the place, Al. He must already be inside."

"Knuckles said that he likes to get rough Vince," the big guy said as he checked to see if there was anyone hiding in the car.

"Well if he gets rough take care of him," the gangster called 'Vince' said. "You're big enough to take him aren't you?"

"Yeah," the huge hood named 'Al' nodded as he peered at the two story house hidden behind the overgrown garden. He opened the trunk of the grey sedan and pulled out a huge pair of bolt cutters. "We should have brought shotguns for this job," he muttered.

"Quit your whinin', just get the gate open," his partner ordered. "If we're lucky, we can surprise the negotiator and the Grant dame."

Soon the padlock was on the ground and the two gangsters disappeared into the garden. They had avoided the drive leading up to the house and concealed themselves in the overgrown vegetation that made the garden look like part of the forest. Listening carefully, Roger entered the grounds as soon as the pair of hoods was out of sight.

Baleful primal trees of unholy size, age, and grotesqueness leered above him like pillars of some ancient temple. Beyond the rugose and swelling trunks, far in the background, rose the damp ivied stones of the old Belington's Mansion. Roger concealed himself in the Dutch garden whose walks and beds were polluted by white, fungous, fetid, overnourished vegetation that probably never saw full daylight. Walking through the grounds, Roger found himself in an overgrown graveyard were deformed trees tossed insane branches as their roots displaced unhallowed slabs and sucked an unholy nourishment from what lay below.

Roger stayed low, crouching as he went through the tangled, plant infested grounds, his ears straining to hear the two goons he was following. Crouching allowed him to stay out of sight and spot the occasional footprint when he found a patch of damp earth that wasn't covered in dense, luxurious vegetation. He was no wilderness tracker but neither were the pair he was following. The sounds of their footsteps were clearly audible as were snatches of muffled conversation.

This was a setback Roger had predicted but hoped he could avoid. Somehow Crater's men managed to find Jenny Grant at the same time Roger did. Whether they had followed Roger or were searching independently was irrelevant. Without Doctor Grant Roger didn't have any leverage over Crater, although Crater would still have Dorothy. It was unacceptable and Roger would have to find some way to dispatch Crater's goons and convince Miss Grant to…

Roger's thoughts were interrupted by a masculine cry and the sound of someone firing a pistol. It sounded like the two hoods were in trouble! How could that be, unless there were more parties than Zeke Crater who wanted to find Jenny Grant?

Against his better judgment, he found himself moving in the direction of the struggle. Morbid curiosity had won out over caution. When he saw the two hoodlums he stopped in surprise, his mouth gaping open idiotically.

The two gangsters were struggling against the vegetation itself! Vines had entangled their limbs. Branches from nearby trees and bushes scratched at their bodies. The two gangster's pistols were useless against a foe that was all around them, but that didn't stop them from squeezing off a few shots before dropping their guns.

"There's no way…" Roger gasped in disbelief before his foot was pulled out from under him. "Ah!" He fell to the ground and was clawing at the dirt as a vine looped around his ankle pulled him into a cluster of vegetation. "Hey!" he protested. "Let go!" Before he knew it more vines snaked around him like an octopus' tentacles. His limbs were pulled away from his body and entwined in the serpentine vines as he struggled helplessly.

A large mushroom let out a piercing whistle. Openings under the umbrella of the giant toadstool sucked in air and expelled it through a hole in the top causing a near continuous unholy siren. Roger had never heard a noise like that before and the din threatened to drive him mad.

Eventually a short, slender figure appeared carrying an apparatus composed of some kind of metal tank strapped to the back connected to a short hose that ended in a sprayer of some sort. The figure wore a gas mask and sprayed the vegetation carefully while stepping gingerly forward, stumbling under the heavy weight of the tank. The newcomer was concealed by full body suit composed of some kind of plastic, complete with rubber gloves and galoshes. The figure stopped when it reached the trio of struggling men and removed its gas mask to reveal a woman's face smirking at them.

Her skin was deathly white and her short bobbed hair was jet black. Fine cheekbones framed a sensual mouth that was adorned with blood red lipstick. Her left cheek was decorated with what looked like three beauty marks, but on closer examination was three six pointed stars. Her crooked smile didn't reach her large heavily mascaraed eyes. "Well, well, well," she said in a soft breathy voice. "Looks like Zeke finally found me. You're about to find out that crime doesn't pay boys. I'll bet you've all killed enough men to get the death penalty, so I won't lose any sleep using you for my experiments."

Al and Vince gave muffled protests, but with thick vines effectively gagging them, they couldn't do anything but emit garbled whines. Roger's head was free so he could protest. "Now wait a minute!" he cried. "I'm not one of Crater's thugs! I'm not with these guys!"

She turned her large hazel eyes towards him. Despite the look of distain they were giving him, her large eyes gave her the look of being perpetually surprised. "Come now, handsome. You expect me to believe that? Guests come up the drive and knock on the door. Intruders sneak around in the garden and try to get in the back way. Do you think I was born yesterday?" Her quiet voice was almost a whisper. She smiled wickedly. "I've seen enough killers in black suits to know one when I see one sweetie." She hid her face behind her gas mask and pulled a seltzer bottle off a strap on her belt. "Breathe deeply, handsome." A bright green spray came out of the bottle and Roger's world became a kaleidoscope of colors.

The world stopped making sense. Everything was moving. The house seemed to be washing up and down the garden like waves on the beach. All the flowers were in bloom, and the sound of drunken flute playing filled his ears. The woman stepped out of a rainbow and used her apparatus to spray down the vines holding Roger. The vegetation released him. He could move his limbs but he couldn't feel them so he looked at his hands and flexed his legs and walked forwards a few steps.

"Do you know who I am?" the woman asked in a muffled voice through her. "I'm Jenny Grant. I'm your friend. You love me. You want to see me happy. You'll do anything I say, won't you?"

"Juh… Jenny," Roger smiled stupidly. "You're Jenny Grant. You're my friend. I love you. I'll do anything you say to make you happy."

"Good boy," she pinched his cheek. "Wait here while I get your friends, will you?"

"Of course, Jenny. Whatever you say," Roger burbled. To be honest, he wasn't sure of his footing anyway. The ground kept tilting on him and he staggered as he struggled to keep his balance. The world was so colorful. He never saw such bright colors back in Paradigm City. It almost hurt his eyes to look at them. There were so many butterflies. A swarm of them. They circled him as the trees and bushes danced to the discordant music.

"Come on boys, let's go," Jenny Grant said as she picked her way through the garden. "Let's go inside and get you boys settled."

Jenny's house was made of gingerbread. Every kind of cookie and pastry imaginable made up the stones and shingles. Inside, a blood red divan played cards with a mahogany grandfather clock. Flowing curtains that changed colors adorned the windows. The light fixtures were made of tulips.

"This way boys," Jenny called. "This way, into the basement. Watch those steps boys. That's it. You can make it."

The basement walls were so pretty. They kept changing colors as the tables in the center of the room rotated.

Jenny Grant set down the heavy tank, hose, and spray bottle and removed her gas mask and rubber gloves. "Spread your arms, won't you handsome?" It was strange the way Jenny Grant's voice was so quiet and demure despite the cheeky things she said. Almost as strange as the butterflies swarming around Roger and turning into dollar signs. Roger spread his arms out wide as the pale siren embraced him and stroked his body erotically with her hands.

"What is this?" She said as she pulled a baton out of his jacket. She pushed a button and the baton elongated nearly six feet to become a metal quarterstaff. "Very masculine," she smirked as she set it on the table. "Hm, what are these little sharp things?" she asked when she found the shurikens he had used on Crater's men yesterday. "Well they look dangerous," she said as they put them on the table next to his retractable baton. Soon his keys, the remote control for his car and a retractable switchblade knife joined them. She lowered herself to her knees and searched Roger's trousers. "Well I found something dangerous but it doesn't need bullets," she giggled as she rose to her feet and went over to the gangster called 'Vince'. "Let's see if any of your friends are hiding anything."

Roger didn't pay any attention after she left him for his head started hurting. It was a dull ache that soon became lancing hot agony! He groaned as he staggered forwards clutching his face. He was so dizzy. Where was he? He felt like his head was going to explode. His hands, his hands were bleeding! No, it wasn't his hands that were bleeding, it was his face. Blood was coming out of his nose, even out of the tear ducts in his eyes. What was happening to him?

"Oh dear, it looks like you're having an allergic reaction to the spores," Jenny's voice sighed from somewhere in the room. "Dear-dear, that's too bad. Well if it helps you were living on borrowed time anyway. Once you inhale the spores they grow inside your brain and you only last a week or so. At least you're getting it over with quick." There was so much pressure in his head, he couldn't breathe! After that, he couldn't stand. He fell to the ground and the darkness swallowed him up.

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: Funny as Hell_


	4. Funny as Hell

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. Additional material by Sam Lake. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_ Chapter Four: Funny as Hell_

_I always knew that sooner or later it was going to catch up with me. I'd find out lady luck was really a hooker, and that I was fresh out of cash. _

_Jenny Grant had just given me a dose of malignant spores. There was some kind of fungus growing in my head. I could feel green fire eating my brains. The world turned to steam. It did a fade on me. I never had a chance._

_Jenny Grant had got me just as sure as if she'd put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger._

_The shadows rushed me, bruised mug-shot faces hungry for revenge. They knew my weak spots and closed in for the kill._

_The floor turned into a vortex of green blood. _

_I fell._

_The world went from black to green, like I was looking at the world through an emerald lens. I was in a control room of some kind. Sitting in a chair. My feet were in pedals, but I wasn't on a bike ride through the park. Between my legs in front of me were three circular cathode screens. I sat up and looked around the strange semicircular room. Various knobs and switches were arrayed around me like I was in a mad scientist's time machine. Two arms curved around my chair to end with a joystick within reach of each of my hands as if offering me the chance to pilot two planes at once. The curved wall directly ahead of me seemed to be made of a partially translucent green material, but my vision was momentarily too blurry to show me the outside world._

_The center screen displayed scrolling words:_ "BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION DETECTED._" In the left screen was a readout displaying a profile cutaway of a human head. Clusters of green were in the nasal cavity and the forward lobes of the brain, the worst case of nasal congestion ever. The right screen displayed a series of linear graphs, but it was all gibberish in my confused and muddled mind._

"Roger?" _Dorothy's voice called._ "Where are you? Roger?"

"Where am I?" _I muttered as I rose unsteadily to my feet. I let the world turn around me until it hit me like a point-blank shot_ _in the face._ "Big… O? Let me out! Please, I've got to find Dorothy!"

_The hatch opened and I staggered out of the cockpit like a drunk at closing time. Somehow, the cockpit opened right into my office back home. At least I thought it was my office. The dimensions of the room were wrong; they seemed distorted like I was looking through a fish tank. A green haze seemed to cover everything. The room tilted on me so I stumbled over to my desk and stared at my collection of hourglasses. Each hourglass was turned so that lime green sand was running through it instead of resting in the bottom half. _

_I found a note on the desk. There was something disturbingly familiar about the letter before me. The handwriting was all pretty curves._

"You're in a film noir giant robot cartoon series Roger," _Dorothy's voice said._

_The truth split my skull open, a glaring green light washing the lies away. Endless investigations that ended with a giant robot attacking the city for no apparent reason. Everyone using a minimum of movement to cut down on animation costs. The world being populated by stereotypes, not fully fleshed out people. The reason I couldn't remember my past was because I didn't have one. Before episode one, I didn't exist. _

_I was in a film noir giant robot cartoon series._

_Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of._

_I staggered backwards, rubbing at my face like I was trying to take it off. The phone rang and automatically I reached out to answer it._

_When I picked up the phone I heard a hoarse whispery voice rattling off continuous run-on sentences._ "…bartender shiny stuff is made of student necromancers. He sings like a banana wrist having strayed too close to the constellations on their sheathed skulls. The rain of frogs shines as the blood comes down. Do it and then I'll be gone. The megadeus is in your image riding the bar. Then one of those tentacles will feast on the flesh of fallen angels…"

_It was a bad line and a prank call, someone spouting insane babble._

_I couldn't make sense of it._

_But I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu and the caller's voice sounded oddly familiar. _

_I hung up._ "Norman?" _I called._

_There was no answer, but I wasn't really expecting one. I staggered out of the room and down a funhouse hall where the perspectives changed with every step. A foul wind swept past me and I thought I could see ghostly people on their commute to work. They were saying something, but I couldn't hear anything over the deafening sound of my own heartbeat. I found myself in the upstairs parlor outside my bedroom where Dorothy kept the piano. The piano was playing a melancholy tune, but there was nobody there. Dorothy was gone._

"Dorothy?" _I called._ "Dorothy! Where are you?"

_The room started slowly spinning so I walked out to the rooftop patio to get some air. Someone had decorated the rooftop with pots of tomato plants. There I was, just one more tomato waiting for the harvest._

_The vines moved like tentacles and grew to impossible lengths. I cried out and ran for the edge, desperately trying to stay out of the plants' reach. I shouted into my watch as I vaulted off the wall into the abyss below._ "Big O!"

_The street below burst open to disgorge a giant black robot that looked like it was made from cinderblocks. __Two vaguely humanoid legs supported a barrel shaped body. The enormous arms of the Big O were in reality massive piledrivers with huge mechanical hands instead of chisels. The impassive face that was dwarfed by the megadeus' humungous body. The megadeus' tiny head was topped by a red crystalline crown and the top of its chest was covered by a red collar that concealed the cockpit. The red collar rose up to reveal a control room and I leaped through the opening…_

_…to find myself tumbling on the floor of my office and rolling towards my desk. _

_I was in my office. At least I thought it was my office. The dimensions of the room were wrong, they seemed distorted. A green haze seemed to cover everything. The room tilted on me so I stumbled over to my desk. Every hourglass was turned so that the red sand was running through it instead of resting in the bottom half. _

_I found a note on the desk. There was something disturbingly familiar about the letter before me. The handwriting was all pretty curves._

"You're in a fan fiction story Roger," _Dorothy's voice said._

_The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Endless repetition of hackneyed clichés and unresolved sexual tension. Sexual preferences altered, perhaps even reversed to suit the kink of a frustrated amateur. A perfect girl named Mary Sue introduces herself to a group of strangers and finds immediate unconditional acceptance. People acting out of character, strangers with familiar names and faces doing things they would never do. The paranoid feeling that someone who doesn't know what they're doing is controlling my every move._

_I was in a fan fiction story._

_Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of._

_I staggered backwards, rubbing at my face like I was trying to take it off. The phone rang and automatically I reached out to answer it._

_When I picked up the phone I heard a hoarse whispery voice trying to warn me._ "…Don't lose it! It's Grant! It's the spores! Snap out of it! You're a domineus! Remember what that means! Try to remember…"

_It was a bad line and a prank call, someone spouting insane babble._

_I couldn't make sense of it._

_But I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu and the caller's voice sounded oddly familiar. _

_I hung up._ "Dorothy?" _I called._

_There was no answer, but I wasn't really expecting one. I staggered out of the room and down a funhouse hall where the perspectives changed with every step I took. A foul wind swept past me and I thought I could see ghostly soldiers marching in a line. They were saying something, but I couldn't hear anything over the deafening sound of my own heartbeat. I found myself in the upstairs parlor outside my bedroom where Dorothy kept the piano. The piano was gone and in its place was a closed casket._

"Welcome back Negotiator," _a mocking voice sneered._

"What?" _I turned to see __a man in a tattered raincoat that flapped like a cape standing behind me. The man's face was wrapped in bandages and a green lens over his left eye hid it from view._ "Schwartzwald!"_ I cried._ "What are you doing here? You aren't really here! You're in prison, you aren't even dead! This is just a hallucination! Get out of my head!"

_There was no way this could be real. Schwartzwald should have been ranting and raving, but instead he was cool as ice. _"If this is all illusion as you say, you put me here," _the bandaged apparition shrugged. _ "Don't blame me for your own fantasies, Roger Smith. I'm here because you need me here."

"What are you doing here?" _I turned away refusing to look at him._ _If this was all in my head, maybe if I ignored him he really would go away._ "You aren't part of me. I don't want to see you!"

"Evidently you do, or I wouldn't be here now," _Schwartzwald crowed._ "Didn't your little android friend explain it to you? I'm part of you. The part of you that you don't want to face. The part of you that you're ashamed of."

"You're not real!" _I shouted at him._ "I'm not afraid of you, so get out of my nightmares!" _That's right, I wasn't afraid of him. Maybe that's why I was shouting._

"You're not afraid of Michael Seebach are you?" _Schwartzwald smiled a lipless grin._ "You're afraid of _another_ madman with a megadeus aren't you?" _he asked as he walked around me to lean irreverently on the casket. _ "The one named 'Roger Smith.' It's only a matter of time before you lose your mind the same way that poor Seebach did, isn't it? That's what you're really afraid of."

"That's not going to happen to me!" _I growled like a cornered animal._

"Prove it," _Schwartzwald sneered._ "Show me that you're strong enough. Show me that you can face your inner demons and still come out on top."

_I cowered before the bandaged apparition._ "What… do you want from me?"

"I want help you on your quest," _Schwartzwald smiled._ "I want to show you who you really are."

_The interview with my dark side was interrupted by the sound of thunder and laser. I recognized that sound. It was the sound of a megadeus destroying the city, but it sounded like there were enough of them to form a band._

"What's that outside?" _I asked._

"That_?" Schwartzwald turned to the windows that displayed the rooftop patio and the outside world._ "That's just your body's defenses fighting off the infection that's gotten into your brain. Want to see?" _We walked out onto the patio and looked over the edge of the wall that separated the patio from the drop to the street below. The city was filled with Big O's and green amoeboid monsters locked in battle. The Big O's seemed to be winning._

"My body's defenses… look like Big O," _I gasped._ "Why do my body's defenses look like Big O?"

"You know why," _Schwartzwald laughed._ "But you aren't concerned with your own puny life right now are you? You're obsessing on something else right now."

"Dorothy," _I whispered._

"I was about to say your true identity," _the bandaged specter said in a disappointed voice. _ "Think. The Memories are there, just beyond your recollection. Once the nanodeuses finish tearing the fungus out of your brain, they'll rebuild your neural pathways. This is your chance to remember everything that you've lost. You can regain your true identity. This is your chance to get back your Memories."

_He was trying to sell me the answers, but I wasn't in a buying mood._

"Dorothy… I've got to save Dorothy…" _I turned from the spectacle devastating the cityscape._ "My obsession with Memories cost her before. Beck attacked the mansion with his scorpion robots the first time I was chasing Memories. Now Crater's goons have kidnapped her while I've been scouring the city, looking for my past. I keep dropping what I have now just to reach for something buried in the past. Something that might not be worth it. Something that might not exist."

"Don't be stupid!" _Schwartzwald hissed at me._ "This is your chance. That lump of putty you call a brain is being rewired! _You_ can rewire it! Are you going to continue going around in circles never knowing who you are or where you've been? How can you know where you're going if you live like that?"

"I've got to pay attention to the here and now!" _I growled as I headed back inside._ "I've got to save Dorothy before it's too late!"

"She isn't real." _Schwartzwald darted in front of me, blocking the doorway back into the mansion._

"No," _I shook my head._ "You're wrong. She is. She's just as real as I am."

"You don't even know why you can't let her go do you?"

"I only know I lost her before and I'm not going to lose her again!"

_Schwartzwald shook his head._ "You poor deluded fool. How long can you go on like this? How long do you intend to keep hiding from yourself? Don't you see that you've turned yourself into a puppet? Your bid for freedom failed. You've got to face the truth and start over. Only a dog lives solely in the present, and you don't even like the present day. Why can't you give up the ephemeral things of this life to regain the life you lost? You can find out who you really are, why you can pilot the megadeus and what other powers you have! Don't throw it all away!"

"I don't intend to throw _anything_ away!" _I snapped_. "I'm going to rescue Dorothy and tell her how I feel!"

"You don't even _know_ how you feel!" _Schwartzwald retorted._ "You don't know how _she_ feels, or even if she can _feel_ at all! Don't you see that you're gambling just as much by trying to keep the present as you would trying to regain the past?"

"The past is over and done with and if I don't act now Dorothy will be part of it and I'll lose her forever!" _I insisted._ "I don't have time to chase the past right now, not if I want to keep what I have and save the future!"

"You idiot, without your Memories you might not have a future!" _Schwartzwald growled._

"I don't need lost Memories to do the right thing!" _I exclaimed._

"You dope! Your Memories determine your identity! They rule you, they define who you are! Can't you see that?"

_At that moment the head and shoulders of Big O peeked over the wall to view the spectacle on the roof._ "People! Are not! Ruled by their Memories!" _I shouted as I tackled Schwartzwald. _

_Snarling and hissing, we rolled back into the parlor and hit the casket. I was on top so I seized Schwartzwald by the head and slammed it against the floor._

"Argh!" _Schwartzwald cried and grasped the back of his head._ "Don't!" _he implored as I struggled with the lid of the casket. _"You're making the wrong choice! Can't you see that you're forty years too late?"

"I made a promise to protect her, and once I start a job I always see it through_," I smirked as I opened the casket. I gasped as I saw a partially disassembled Dorothy lying within. She was nude, but that didn't matter because much aside of her head, hands and feet, her skin had been removed, exposing pistons, wires, circuitry and parts of a metal shell._ "Dorothy…" _I sighed as I crouched over her to caress her pale face. _ "Dorothy…"

_Suddenly she sank into the coffin as if there was a hidden elevator in the casket. Dorothy was being taken away from me again!_ "Oh no you don't!" _I cried as I climbed in after her._

"That's right," _a groaning Schwartzwald sighed as he sat up and rubbed the back of his injured skull._ "Get in _a coffin_ while you're having a near death experience. Why don't you just step into the light while you're at it? Idiot."

_I grunted in irritation before letting go of the edges to let myself drop._

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: Dying is Easy_


	5. Dying is Easy

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. Additional material by Howard Phillip Lovecraft. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Five: Dying is Easy_

_I was in a massive cemetery, a necropolis that seemed to go on endlessly to the horizon. The stones were ancient, so ancient that I trembled at the manifold signs of immemorial years. It was in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown with rank grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds, and filled with a vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdly with rotting stone. On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted by the notion that I was the first living creature to invade a lethal silence of centuries. Over the valley's rim a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors that seemed to emanate from unheard-of catacombs, and by its feeble, wavering beams I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs, and mausoleum facades; all crumbling, moss-grown, and moisture-stained, and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation. I can recall the scene of that hideous cemetery—the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the odors of mold, vegetation, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and worst of all, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound which I could neither see nor definitely place._

_I seemed to know where I was going. My purpose was resolute. I ran, jogged, and staggered past forgotten crypts and teeth-like stones, past stately mausoleums and over hideous vegetation. In my delirious fancy I imagined that the cemetery's silent inhabitants were arranged alphabetically from A to Z and to find the mausoleum I was looking for I only had to imagine the whole place one morbid library. I fled from the grave adorned with a beautiful feminine Angel, dashed past the freshly dug but empty grave of 'Burg', sauntered past the empty crypt of the Dastuns, and paid my respects at the dual grave marked 'Fairy'. I then paused to spit on the tombstone marked 'Gabriel' and took off like a madman before stopping to catch my breath at the Rosewater mausoleum. I was careful not to look at the tombs marked with names beginning with 'S' but concentrated until I found the section I was interested in, the graves starting with 'W'. I walked gingerly around the grave of Ellen Waite, crept past the memorial to Thomas and Martha Wayne and finally found the resting place I was looking for._

_The name on the mausoleum was 'Wayneright'. This was the place. This is where I would find Dorothy, the girl who had been taken from me before she experienced what it meant to be a woman. She was no doubt taken apart by greedy fools like Beck or Crater and I was determined to get her back, even if it meant entering the land of the dead itself. Dorothy may have been banished to the past in the world I knew, but she would be there in the next world, and I would be with her._

_Cursing myself for not bringing any picks, levers, or even a crowbar I furiously threw myself at the sturdy doors in a desperate attempt to enter. I didn't seem to feel physical pain as I gave it my shoulder before kicking savagely at the unyielding door. Suddenly I was seized by an idea. The uncanny vegetation infesting this necropolis included trees. If I could use a sturdy branch as a lever I could work the door open. _

_When I turned from the crypt, my vision was suddenly obscured by a flock of bats. The flying rodents swarmed around me. All thoughts of opening the door were lost by the frantic desire to protect my hands and face. I knelt on the ground in a fetal position before they attack ended as quickly as it came. I got up, dazed, and brushed myself off. I was unhurt, my clothes weren't even torn, and my maniac frenzy to enter the tomb seemed to have abated. _

"She's not there, Roger," _a deep masculine voice called. I looked in the direction of the voice. Standing before the memorial to Thomas and Martha Wayne was a tall burly man in a brown business suit. He was about my height and was built like a football running back. He had black hair and a square jaw. He was a good looking guy, a picture of health that made him seem young despite his obvious air of maturity. Only when he was really close up could I tell that he was almost twice my age. _"You're confusing this for the last time," _he said as he approached me._

_I knew him. I had no memory of ever meeting him before. I had never seen his likeness, not as a photograph nor as a face hidden in a crowd, but somehow I knew him. Just as I knew that I had to find Dorothy and make things up to her. Just as I knew how to operate Big O._

"Dad?" _I whispered as I took a few hesitant steps towards him._ "I… I know you. We've never met but I know you. You're… you're my father."

"Roger you can't bring the dead back," _he told me._ "Believe me. I know where you're coming from. I've been there. I know what it's like to lose the most important people in your life."

"But… I've got to find her!" _I whined as I turned back to the_ _mausoleum. _"Dad, I've got to find her! I won't let anything stop me!"

"Roger once you go in there, there's no coming back," _he pointed at the name on the mausoleum. The name now read 'Smith'. Perhaps it always had._

_I can't describe the way I felt. I seemed to panic, but it was a panic of desperation rather than fear. _"But… I've got to find her! That's where she is, I know it! She's been taken from me… and I've got to follow her if I want to see her again…"

_He put a strong but comforting hand on my shoulder._ "Roger you can't bring them back_," he said firmly. _"And you needn't be in a hurry to join them. The people in the next world are nothing if not patient. If she's there, she'll wait for you."

_My_ _eyes made like a faucet. Turn the handle and the water just gushes out. _"But… Dorothy… She's alone… I've got to find her because she's all alone…"

"Believe me son, there are far too many who went before their time," _my father said sadly._ "If she's there, she's anything but alone. But how do you know she's there in the first place? There's still hope you know."

"I just know, that's all," _I said as I wiped my face, my eyes drying at last. _"She's just got to be there! Just like last time… She's gone. She's been taken away… and taken apart. Her Memory's been stolen. All that she is. Even if we find her and put her back together no one has the technical knowhow to restore her Memories."

"Son, you're getting confused. That happened last time," _my father said as he stood beside me gazing at the Smith_ _mausoleum. _"That's what happened when Beck took her. But how do you know that's what happened this time?"

"Because that's what happened!" _I stomped my foot like a spoiled ten-year-old._ "The components in her body are worth a fortune and her Memories are priceless! I can't believe a snake like Zeke Crater wouldn't take advantage of that!"

"Roger you don't know," _he shook his head firmly._ "You don't know that she's been dismantled. You just assume she has. Don't you think you better look for her in the world you know before you explore the world you don't? The next world will still be there for you. There's no rush, son."

_I was delirious, out of control. I threw myself at the door of the mausoleum in a childish tantrum. _"But… but… Dorothy! Dorothy!"

_My father once again put his reassuring hand on my shoulder._ "Roger, she's been dead before, and you got her back. When Beck took her memory he removed her I/O peripherals and no one had the technical expertise to put them back in, but you still managed to figure something out. Unlike people who are flesh and blood, you can get her back Roger, even if the worst has happened. The odds aren't a hundred percent but at least you have a chance. That's better than most people get. Don't be so quick to give up."

_My emotional fit was over. Now I was just numb. _"But… but… I'm tired Dad. I don't want to go on like this. I'm sick of the ride. I want off."

"We all get tired son but we have to go on," _he nodded sympathetically._ "As long there's a chance that you can find that little girl in the world you know you can't stop looking there. You owe it to both her and yourself to try. If she's not in the next world you could spend a long time looking."

_He was right, and I was exhausted. There was no point arguing anymore. _"You're… you're right, Dad." _I nodded_. "Dorothy's got to be alive. If I give up on her I give up on both of us. Get me… get me out of here."

"Come on, I know the way," _he said in that confident, world-weary way of his._ "I must have gone this way dozens of times," _he muttered as he led us into the_ _antique ivied church._ _When he opened the door a flock of bats flew out but he didn't flinch. _"Watch the steps, Roger. You don't want to slip." _He took a flashlight out of his pocket before leading me up the steeple steps._

_I followed him as he turned up the darkened spiral of narrow wooden steps. He was a shadowy silhouette lit only by the intermittent glare of his bobbing light._ _Strangely enough, despite his reassuring presence, my courage hadn't returned._ "Will it hurt to go back?"

"Dying is easy. Living is hard," _he grunted._ "It's always a temptation to quit. When Alex Rosewater and his white megadeus sent you and Big O to the bottom of the ocean you gave up then too didn't you?"

"Gave up?" _I repeated in disbelief as I followed the bobbing light. _"I _gave up_?"

"Big O offered you a chance at life and you refused," _he shrugged as he paused on the seemingly endless spiral of narrow stairs._ "That sounds like quitter talk to me. You thought you had lost her and you didn't have the energy to keep fighting. You don't have to be ashamed Roger. You may be a domineus but you're only human. We all get tired and we all give up sometimes. It happens. The important thing now is to pick yourself up and keep going."

"But… if I would have accepted Big O's offer, Big O and I would have become one being!" _I protested. _"I would have had to relinquish my identity!"

"You've done it before, don't make such a big deal out of it," _my father said as we resumed our climb up the steep and rickety stairs._

"You don't understand!" _I shook my head as we continued. _"Big O and I would have become one! There would have been no 'Roger' or 'Big O' there would only have been one being who is both of us!"

_My father's voice sounded tired. _"Roger, that's already happened."

* * *

><p>In the meantime, miles away in the world that Roger knew Dorothy's blindfold was being removed. She saw a darkened parlor with the shades drawn. A single lamp illuminated the room, but its light was blocked by the tall figure in the cape and the wide-brimmed hat standing in front of it. "Is this the android?" he asked.<p>

"That's right boss, this is her," said a gangster with a huge bruise on the left side of his jaw. "R Dorothy Wayneright, just as you ordered Mister Crater."

"Well R Dorothy Wayneright, I hope for your sake the negotiator comes through," Crater muttered. "Otherwise you'll never see him again. Come over here so I can get a look at'cha."

She walked forward a few paces to view a large youthful appearing man surveying her with large unwinking eyes that were all dark pupil. His face was strangely immobile and his complexion was smoother than Dorothy's. Even without bright light it was obvious that Crater's skin was actually some kind of rigid, insect-like carapace. If she had to guess, she would have to say that she was looking at an attempt to make an android that appeared as lifelike as her, but it was hopeless. Crater could never pass for human in bright light the way Dorothy did.

"So it's true," he said wistfully as he scrutinized her. "You _do_ look almost real."

"What sort of being are you?" she asked him. "Are you an android? I've never seen anyone quite like you before."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he hissed angrily, yet his face never lost its neutral expression. A number of bulges at rib level hidden under his clothing wriggled as if trying to escape. "I'm Zeke Crater! You hear you dumb robot? Zeke Crater!" Crater's fist had the same pale smooth glossy texture as his face and Dorothy got a good look at it as he raised it and struck her in the face with a quick but stiff and clumsy motion. Aside of snapping her head to the right, the girl didn't flinch but just looked at him with no expression on her face. Crater stopped and looked at her when she didn't react. For a moment the room was quiet, but then Crater started laughing.

"Heh-heh-heh," he chuckled through his masklike face. "The silly doll doesn't know any better! Mister Smith has got himself an interesting little toy, that's for sure. What do you do for him, doll-face?"

"I clean his house," she said.

"What else?"

"I sing and play the piano."

"That all?" Crater's voice was skeptical. "I hear Smith was quite a hit with the ladies before you moved in."

"That's all," Dorothy told him. "Perhaps he injured himself."

All the men in the room laughed, grateful that the tension had been dispelled.

"Well what are we waitin' for boys?" Crater gave a stiff, puppet-like wave. "Let's see if Smitty's little toy can entertain us! Come on and play us a tune, doll-face."

They ushered her into a richly appointed room that had a grand piano. The curtains were drawn and one of Crater's men turned on a table lamp. The wall switches weren't touched. Like in the other room, only a single light source. The men's shadows were large on the wall but Dorothy's shadow became small and distinct as she approached the piano. She sat down and without preamble proceeded to play 'The Entertainer', a jaunty ragtime tune that held a hint of nostalgia.

"That's no good, play somethin' more appropriate," Crater mumbled.

Without missing a beat she played the dramatic chords from 'Phantom of the Opera'. Even on a piano instead of an organ, the tune was unmistakable.

"That supposed to be funny?" Crater growled.

"I wanted to lighten the mood," Dorothy said in that careful stilted way of hers.

"If you wanna lighten th' mood, play somethin' more feminine, toots," Crater ordered. Somethin' more romantic like."

Dorothy played the tune that was playing the night Timothy Wayneright, her father and creator died. It was gentle, lonely tune that was romantic in a sad kind of way. As she played she noticed that most of the shadows in the room were gone. There was just her small shadow and Crater's large one. She gave no sign of alarm, she just kept playing, but she noticed Crater's shadow become smaller and more distinct. He was approaching her. Soon his shadow was life sized and swallowed up her smaller one. He was standing right behind her.

"Pretty," he commented. "You look so real."

"Thanks," she said as her hands pressed the keys. "So do you."

"Yuh got a smart mouth you know that?"

"So I've been told."

"You are a piece of work, you know that?" he laughed bitterly. "I'll say one thing. You got a lotta moxie for an android."

"Thank you."

Dorothy stopped playing as Crater ran a finger across her cheek.

"Yuh got a sense of touch I see," Crater muttered.

"My skin is laced with nanofilament sensors that give me feedback," she said. "They allow me to sense things like pressure, temperature and texture."

"Well ain't that interestin'," Crater's voice held a hint of triumph. "Does that mean that you can feel things just like the rest of us?"

"I can feel things if that's what you mean," Dorothy admitted. "I don't know if I can feel like humans do."

"How 'bout a hug?" He asked as his white, chitin like hands caressed her narrow shoulders. "Can ya feel a hug?"

"I would be aware that I'm being hugged." The drive in her head whirred audibly as Crater's hands played over her face and neck. "I would be aware if someone touched me in any way."

"So what do you do for Roger Smith anyway, doll-face?" Crater purred in her ear as his unnatural hands caressed her shoulders.

"I don't understand."

"I think you do."

Dorothy rose from the piano and turned to face him. Her eyes widened at the sight of Zeke Crater. Although he still wore his hat and cape, he had removed his shirt to reveal that his chest was banded with rib-like strips of chitin, with deeply shadowed depressions in between. More alarming were the four extra appendages folded against his sides that appeared to be jointed whips ending in sharp bony hooks. They unfolded in a surprisingly fluid motion to spread his cape open, blocking any light that would allow the girl to gain any more details of the crime boss' uncanny appearance. Dorothy's alabaster white face was plunged into darkness by Crater's inhuman shadow as the crime lord reached for her…

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: A Beautiful Specimen_


	6. A Beautiful Specimen

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. Additional material by Lisa Smedman. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Six: A Beautiful Specimen_

_Slowly the green nightmare faded, leaving dark stains in my soul that would never come off. I felt like flatlining. I was all shook up. I awoke in a cold sweat, shivering as frozen metal pressed against my bare skin._

Light finally invaded his world, but not the colorful light he experienced in Jenny Grant's garden. This was a cold white light that cut through his corneas like a knife. He squinted and blinked as he tried to focus. He was laying down on a cold metal surface and his limbs were restrained by leather straps by the feel of it. He shivered because someone had stripped him to his underwear.

He flexed against his bonds, testing their strength. It was no good. His arms and legs were spread in a jumping jack position and he didn't have any leverage. Even a man who could lift a two hundred and eighty pound android couldn't break free. His head still hurt especially his eyes and nose. It felt like someone had punched him in the face repeatedly before going at him with a box cutter. Someone had stuck a tube down his throat and he gagged as he struggled.

"He's awake Jenny," a man's voice said. Roger thought it was the gangster named Vince but he couldn't be sure.

"Oh good," came Jenny's quiet husky voice. "Remove the feeding tube, won't you Vince? He won't need it anymore."

"Yes Jenny," the gangster said, his speech slurring a bit. Roger winced as the tube was extracted from his gullet. He gagged and coughed before looking up at the figure blocking the overhead light.

Vince stared down at him, his eyes empty. The gangster was now dressed in overalls and a white lab coat instead of his pinstripe suit. Roger stared at him as he realized what had happened to the gangster. The question was… what was going to happen to _him_?

"Tilt the table so he can see me," Jenny ordered. "Not too much or his restraints will cut off his circulation. Just a little bit. There we go."

Roger found himself at a forty-five degree angle looking into a chamber that had to be a laboratory. Several stainless steel laboratory tables were lined up along the middle of the room. Blown-glass test tubes, beakers, vials and pipettes, Bunsen burners glowing with blue flames, coils of copper tubing, mortars filled with strange powders, delicate weigh scales, thermometers, and dark brown glass jars filled with liquid, were arranged on the tables.

Along the wall, two windows provided a view of the scarred, primeval forest. Six brass bathtubs, each covered with a glass lid and filled with a pale green liquid sit beneath the windows. At the foot of each tub are sets of dials marked with captions: 'Temperature,' 'Salinity,' 'Pulse Frequency,' and 'Nutrient Level.' Needles jiggled in each. Hoses just below the gauges carried gurgling liquid from the bathtub into a humming black box and into the tub again. On top of the box, an inked needle scribbled a wiggly line across a scroll of paper.

Each tub contained a recognizable creature. The first three tubs contained animals—a rat, a dog, and a monkey—that were almost fully formed. The next two tubs held human tissue. The first was little more than a living torso—a rudimentary skeleton had formed, and immature organs and tissue had sprouted at attached themselves to it. The second was in an even more primitive stage of development—only its brain, eyes, and spinal cord had formed.

Jenny Grant was in a white lab coat over surgical scrubs. She looked up from a microscope and smiled at him. "How are you feeling?"

Roger groggily searched for a witty retort. "Like someone took an icepick to my face." Best he could do under the circumstances.

Jenny shrugged with vacant eyes and a crooked smile. "A syringe actually. I just wanted a sample from your cerebral cortex."

"You… you took a piece out of my brain?" Roger blanched.

"Just a _little_ piece," she assured him as she strolled over to his table. "Don't worry. If my assessment is correct, as long as we continue to feed you a nutritious diet you should be fine, better than fine really." She surveyed him with predatory eyes. "You really are a beautiful specimen. I would have stripped you entirely but those cute little black silk boxers are so sexy I couldn't bring myself to. I'm a bit of a fetishist I suppose."

"You're crazy!" the words were out of Roger's mouth before he knew it.

"I'm not crazy, I've been tested!" Jenny Grant pouted.

"You're just like your brother!" Roger gasped. "Experimenting on human beings…"

"I'm nothing like my brother, he was a kook," Jenny insisted. "The only human beings I'm experimenting on are bad guys who deserve to die anyway. It doesn't matter _how_ they die, does it? Don't say things like that."

_The adrenaline helped clear my dizzy head. I was trapped in a mad scientist's lab and bargaining for my life. Getting her angry might not be the smart thing to do. She thought I was sexy in my boxer shorts. It was time to turn on the charm like my life depended on it, but I'd have to be subtle, or she'd never buy it._

"I'm strapped down by a beautiful woman who's sticking needles in my brain," Roger growled sarcastically. "Forgive me for jumping to conclusions!"

"It looks like I also jumped to conclusions," Jenny admitted. "There's no way you can be one of Zeke's boys."

"Really?" Roger's smile came out as more of a grimace. "What makes you say that? Checked my ID?"

"No, it's the fact that your body has actually fought off the spores," Jenny said.

"What?"

"I said you've managed to fight off the spores," Jenny repeated. "That is, of course, impossible. Once they start growing in a living brain they slowly replace the cranial tissue until the subject dies a mindless vegetable. In the meantime the victim is in a docile, euphoric state and is susceptible to suggestion. There is no treatment for it. Once you inhale the spores you're doomed."

"Why am I snapping out of it then?" Roger asked.

"That's a good question." Jenny darted over to the microscope. "Come over and take a look." She turned sheepishly back to Roger. "Oh, well you'll just have to take my word for it. You can't see much at this resolution anyway. It seems that your cells are infested with a subcellular microscopic virus."

"Did you do that to me?"

"No, you had it before you met me dear," she said. She sauntered playfully back to his table while gazing predatorily at him. "The virus appears to be some kind of symmetrical grit that's small enough to pass through your cellular walls. But here's the interesting thing. The virus appears to be beneficial. It's going into the fungal cells and taking them apart from within. It's using the debris from your damaged neurons to rebuild them. Your synapses are being rebuilt good as new."

"What are you saying? Are saying that my brain is invincible or something?"

"Look you don't understand." Jenny was grinning like a maniac, but that was appropriate for her. "Nerves don't heal. Brain damage is permanent, the synapses just reroute themselves as best they can, but brain damage doesn't heal. Don't you see? Not only has your body rejected the spores, the brain damage has been reversed. Don't you know what this means?"

"What? That I can heal brain damage?" Roger was trying to keep up.

"You still don't get it handsome." Jenny leaned coquettishly on his table and rubbed his nipple with her forefinger. "If your nerves can heal, what other regenerative properties does your body possess? Can you heal any injury or never get tired? How much… stamina does a beautiful specimen like you have, darling?"

Roger shuddered under the unwanted intimate contact but still valiantly tried to flirt. "Undo these straps and maybe you can find out," he smiled weakly.

"Nice try sweetie, but I like you like this," Jenny grinned a crooked smile. "So what's your name dear? I'm Jenny Grant, but of course you know that don't you? Yes. Doctor Jenny Grant, experimental biologist. How do you do?"

"Hi," Roger smiled sheepishly. "Roger Smith. Negotiator. I've been better."

"So Roger Smith Negotiator, what brings you to my doorstep?" She smiled condescendingly. "And with such interesting company too."

_I decided to simply blurt out the truth. I was still too dazed to make up a lie and the truth might actually help._

"I was hired by Ezekiel Crater to negotiate for a biochemical serum that's in your possession," he said as smoothly as he could.

"Were you?" Her smile was cruel now.

"I understand that you two have a history. Might I ask what a nice girl like you has in common with a thug like Zeke Crater?"

"Oh, well… you know how it goes," Jenny rolled her eyes and a rosy color brought some needed color to her cheeks. "Sometimes nice girls like me can't resist someone who's completely no good for them. That's been the story of my life. I've always been attracted to the bad boys. Garbage on legs. Usually I watch my step but Zeke had a real zest for life, you know what I mean?"

"How did you two kids meet anyhow?"

"Well after my brother went off the deep end the Paradigm Group cut my funding, I had to provide medical services for Zeke and his little friends to pay for my research. You know, removing a bullet, doing a little cosmetic surgery, things like that. Then Zeke noticed me and we started seeing each other. You know, I never met a man like him before. He really knew how to have fun, and quite honestly, I really didn't. I'm a real bookworm, I guess. Don't relate to people at all. I tried to look the other way when he kept playing around on me but one day I just snapped. You know how delicate a lady's heart can be, don't you? I injected him with a mutagen that turned him into the cockroach he is and now he can't play with women anymore. That will teach him."

Roger's breath caught in his throat.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice," Jenny frowned. "I don't expect a man to faithful but it was just mean for Zeke to throw it in my face like he did. That's men for you. You give them an inch and they take a mile. If we were an item, and you were seeing other women you wouldn't invite them over to our place would you? If you invited me to a party, you wouldn't disappear with someone else would you? I didn't think so. But Zeke, he just didn't know how to be nice. He was like a child that way. You're not like a child are you?"

"What?" Roger gulped. "N-no," he shook his head and tried to look as nonchalant as a man stripped to his boxer shorts and strapped to a table could be.

"I don't know…" Her large eyes squinted suspiciously at him. "You look awfully young to me. You're as adorable as a little boy, handsome."

"I'm older than I look," Roger said. "Honest."

"That's interesting." Jenny brightened. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-five, give or take," he shrugged.

"Interesting," she tapped her finger on her chin. "I wonder if the little buggers in your cells also rejuvenate you. You look _twenty_-five. Could they be responsible?"

"What are they?"

"That's a good question," she nodded. "Your little friends, the critters in your cells, they're like no virus I've ever seen. Normally a virus hijacks the nuclei of the host's cells and produces more virus, but these little guys act like antibodies. They actually hijack any cells that are going wrong and fix your DNA to get rid of any mutation. They've completely broken apart the fungus cells. May I ask how you got them?"

"I have no idea."

"You aren't hiding something from me are you?"

Roger glanced down at his exposed body. "Kind of hard to do that isn't it?"

Jenny gave a playful giggle. "Oh, you really _are_ fun. I'll take some samples, then we can get to know each other better over dinner. Hopefully I'll know more about what makes you tick by then."

"How long have I been here?" Roger asked as Jenny strolled leisurely to a table filled with medical equipment.

"Oh, just a few hours," Jenny said as she selected her syringes. "You took a long nap, so you'll probably have trouble sleeping tonight. I can give you something if it helps. It will be interesting to see how long drugs can affect you. Can those little guys neutralize chemicals as quickly as an infection? Should be interesting."

Roger drew in a breath and tried to remain calm.

_She was crazy all right, but a lot more subtle then her brother. Poor Crater must have had no idea who he was getting involved with. It was possible that I could talk my way out of this, but the odds were that she would try to keep me here for the rest of my life. I didn't think that Crater was a patient man. If he didn't hear from me in a day or two he might not think it was necessary for Dorothy to stay in one piece. I would have to get out of here, and soon._

* * *

><p>In the meantime, miles away in an ivy covered mansion by the coast Dorothy Wayneright was menaced by the inhuman Ezekiel Crater. With his shirt off, the girlish android could see that his chest was banded with rib-like strips of ivory white chitin, with deeply shadowed depressions in between. Four extra appendages connected to his body just under the armpits and resembled jointed whips ending in sharp bony hooks. They unfolded from his body and spread his cape open like a man-sized pair of wings.<p>

Dorothy struck Crater dead in the chest and the crime boss flew backwards until the wall stopped his flight, causing him to tumble to the floor. As he scrambled to his feet she could see that his legs had an extra joint and his extra limbs flailed about, knocking over the little table with the lamp on it and plunging the room into darkness. Dorothy didn't stop to take in the details; instead she turned and dashed for the windows and plunged through both glass and wooden shutters. Although she dived successfully through the barricaded window, she lost most of her momentum so she tumbled awkwardly just outside before she rolled to her feet and tried to lose herself in the wild and unattended hedges near the house.

"You little minx!" Crater yelled. "I'll get you!"

A gunshot exploded through the night air. Dorothy tripped on the vegetation but she didn't dare use the halogen light concealed in her head under the barrette that framed her bangs. Her only hope was speed and concealment. In the dead of night Roger's preference for black was sensible for it made Dorothy that much harder to locate.

"After her youse guys!" Crater bellowed. "Duh android's escaping!"

Dorothy spared a glance in the direction of the Crater's voice, for it didn't come from where it should have. Instead it came from an impossible angle that indicated that he was at least a story up. Perhaps his altered form gave him a strange agility to leap into a tree. No. A strange shape was silhouetted across the moon. Crater had giant membranous wings that he used to turn his jumps into titanic unbelievable leaps that resembled actual flight.

Dorothy shouldn't have looked back. Against the darkness her white face almost glowed in the dark. "There she is! I'll handle you, doll-face!"

Dorothy gasped and ran at full speed. Her barrette slid out of her head to reveal a halogen lamp to light the way for her. In the meantime she heard voices shouting. Crater's men must have left the house to join the chase.

Crater did his best to keep up but didn't catch her until she reached the edge of a cliff. "Now ya got nowhere to run," he crowed as he landed and his extra arms spread to block her way.

Dorothy could see her blow hadn't injured him. His chitin-like skin was like a suit of armor. She glanced over the side to see waves breaking off the jagged rocks below. Her barrette slid back into her head as she made her decision. Without a word she catapulted herself over the side of the cliff and into the sea.

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: _It's Just That Easy __


	7. It's Just That Easy

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. Additional material by Dorothy Parker. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Seven: It's Just That Easy_

At dinner, Roger was still strapped to the table but now he was wearing a white collar, a black bow tie, and white cuffs. And his black boxer shorts. A dining table had been set up in front of him, but it was a waste since he couldn't sit at it.

Jenny was sitting close by spoon-feeding him since he couldn't feed himself. Jenny was wearing a filmy white gown with a tube skirt. Fresh lipstick colored her mouth and silver earrings adorned her ears, a hint of blush was applied to her cheeks and a silver necklace was around her throat. As always, her large dark eyes had plenty of eye shadow and her short dark hair was teased. "Now eat up, honeybun. If my observations are correct, a nutritious diet will go further with you than it will for the rest of us."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean those little critters in your cells will use the proteins, vitamins and other complex molecules to repair your body completely," she said as she dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "I think that with enough calcium in your diet and enough time you could eventually replace a severed finger."

"You aren't going to test that hypothesis are you?" asked a nervous Roger Smith.

"Not if you're nice," she smiled evilly before giving him a chaste kiss on the lips. She had been drinking wine with her meal and seemed a bit tipsy. "I think I'll test my pheromones on you. There has to be some chemical combination that should render you susceptible to my charms."

"There's no need for this," Roger tried to keep the panic out of his voice. "I'm not one of Crater's goons. You don't need to keep me prisoner!"

"But of course I do," she giggled softly. "After seeing my lab you think I'm a kook and besides I know too much about you. There's no way you could let me live with that information. No I can't release you until I find a way to pacify you." When she saw the expression on his face she added: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice, Roger. My neck is very delicate and I intend to keep it. Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both," she winked before smiling gently. "Can't we be friends? You're not exactly catching me at my best."

"Yeah," Roger said dryly. "Me neither." He decided to change the subject. "This is a nice place you've got. How did you manage to afford a setup like this?"

"Oh, Zeke didn't realize that I knew his combination," Jenny said breezily as she sipped at her wine. "That silly man, he keeps all of his money in safes. For some reason he just doesn't trust banks. Well, since I knew that after I turned him into the cockroach he is that he'd come after me, I decided to help myself to his money before I left. He'll kill me anyways, so what's the harm?"

"You know you could have just left him," Roger scolded gently. "There are better men in Paradigm than Zeke Crater to make an enemy out of. Now you're on the lam and running out of allies."

"It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard," she sighed. "Where's the man that could ease a heart like a satin gown? The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe."

"Not all men are like that," Roger offered.

"I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid," she sighed. She took a sip of her wine and her voice became sad. "I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium. Then I could kill off the human race and never have to cry again. I hate crying. He'll be cross if he sees I've been crying. They don't like you to cry. He doesn't cry. I wish to God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry and tread the floor and feel his heart heavy and big and festering in him. I wish I could hurt him like hell."

"No worries there," Roger muttered under his breath before changing to a conversational tone. "I take it he wasn't a good listener."

"I don't think he even knew how he made me feel. I wish he could know, without my telling him. They don't like you to tell them they've made you cry. They don't like you to tell them you're unhappy because of them. If you do, they think you're possessive and exacting. And then they hate you. They hate you whenever you say anything you really think. You always have to keep playing little games. Oh, I thought we didn't have to; I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant. I guess you can't, ever. I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that."

For some reason that remark hit Roger like a blow to the stomach. Jenny was in tears, passing from the happy stage to the melancholy stage of inebriation. She was in tears over something that happened three months ago. Three months and she still felt the pain like it was yesterday. Had Roger hurt _his_ past girlfriends like that? Did he really find a woman who told him when he made her unhappy 'possessive and exacting'? Was that why he found Dorothy so attractive? She never told him how she felt. He wasn't sure she was able to. No wonder he refused to admit his feelings for the android girl. He didn't want to hurt her like he had all the others. Had he really just used his lovers before discarding them later? Was that the kind of man he was? Roger the gentleman, what a joke!

No. He had to snap out of it. This was classic hostage psychology. He was starting to sympathize with his captor, and that was dangerous if he ever wanted to get out of here. He had to make sure that he only sympathized with Jenny enough to accurately read her. She was a basket case, but maybe she would respond to a strong hand once could win her trust. What could he say? He had to try _something_. "It's not easy being his sweetheart is it?"

"I was always sweet, at first," Jenny sobbed quietly. "Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them."

"Jenny, it's not your fault the way he treated you," Roger said.

"The sun's gone dim, and the moon's gone black," she chanted sadly. "For I loved him, and he didn't love back."

"He's not worth it," Roger shook his head.

"Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!" she cackled crazily.

"Snap out of it," Roger ordered. "Don't let him control you. The way he treated you was just plain terrible."

"It wasn't just plain terrible, it was fancy terrible. It was terrible with raisins in it," she gasped before she took another drink. "I had too big of a heart, and my big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom." She sipped her drink again, but now her glass was empty. "Unlike those brainless bimbos Zeke would play around with," she hissed bitterly. "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think. To think he'd pass up a brilliant mind like me to play around with airheads. They didn't even know the difference between an enzyme and a hormone. You know the difference between an enzyme and a hormone?"

"No."

"You can't hear an enzyme." Her laughter was like tinkling bells and Roger thought she was going to fall out of her chair. Jenny's voice wasn't low and husky anymore. Now it was high and almost shrill.

"Jenny I think you've had a little too much," Roger said. "You need to slow down."

"I can only have one martini, two at the very most," she giggled. "After three I'm under the table. After four I'm under my host."

"You can barely stand," he said gently. "Undo my straps and I'll take you to your room. We can continue this in the morning after you've sobered up."

"Oh don't worry about me; I'll have one of the boys do it." She waved him off before pulling a whistle out a coin purse that was placed near her plate. The shrill note of the whistle seemed to be a signal that Roger's hopes were dashed. "Thanks for listening Roger. You are such a good listener. Well the boys are good listeners, but they're zombies now. I've got them fixing the roof and painting the house. I have to get them to do as many chores as possible because with the fungus eating their brains they'll only be able to take orders for a few days before they just sit around and wait to die." She was babbling now. "Isn't it sad… Isn't it sad Roger that I have to give a man a lobotomy or tie him up to get him to listen to me? That's… that's so sad… Men don't want to listen. But you're different aren't you Roger? You'll listen won't you? You'd never break my heart. You're different. I love you Roger. I really, really love you. I'd do anything for you."

"Will you release me?" he asked hopefully.

"I couldn't do that 'cause then you'd break my little neck," she burst into hysterical laughter and nearly fell out of her chair. "Oh I'm being silly. I've really had too much to drink, haven't I? You're sweet Roger. I'll see you tomorrow. Once I'm over my hangover we can do something fun together."

Al and Vince, the two gangsters that Jenny had hit with her brain eating spores, shuffled into the room. They were dressed in workingman's clothes, coveralls, work boots, and they had rolled up the sleeves of their soiled cotton shirts. They held toolkits in one hand but their eyes were empty.

"Farewell, my love," Jenny gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "See you tomorrow. Vince, set down your toolbox take me to me room will you? And Al, tilt Roger's table so it's horizontal, there's a good boy."

Vince helped her out of her chair and she clung to him as they staggered up a flight of stairs that rose out of the dining room. Al lumbered forward and adjusted the tilt to Roger's table.

Roger silently cursed his situation. His best chance of escape was convincing her to let him go and the best chance to do that was when she was stinking drunk. The opportunity was dangled before his nose and somehow he had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. He was definitely slipping. There was a time he could talk a woman into just about anything, but the insanity of the past year made it seem a long time long ago.

Now what? Jenny was never going to let him go, not as long as she had a toy like Roger Smith to play with. Worse yet, she seemed to be under the delusion that he could heal any wound that didn't kill him immediately. How long before she started maiming him? Thankfully she seemed to like him in one piece but after she got bored she'd cut him open like a frog. He had to get out of here! But how?

Roger shivered as he looked at the massive, almost Frankenstein-like Al. He was just standing there, waiting for Jenny to tell him what to do. He'd probably stand there all night. That was almost Roger's fate, but somehow his body had fought off the spores. Either Jenny really had found some microscopic substance in his cells, or Roger hadn't inhaled as much as the others.

Roger hated Crater and his whole gang. He was angry with every single one of them for taking Dorothy away, but he still didn't think that they deserved this. Jenny said that the fungus gradually replaced the tissues of the brain entirely and left the victims mindless vegetables. Even now the two gangsters had permanent brain damage. In the meantime they were in what Jenny described as a 'docile, euphoric state and susceptible to suggestion'. A more horrible fate was difficult to imagine. They were dying a slow lingering death that began with a loss of both their free will and identity.

Wait a second. 'Susceptible to suggestion'? Could _anybody_ order them around? Was it really that easy? It couldn't hurt to try. "Al!" he barked. "Hey Al! Can you hear me? Al, talk to me!"

A long pause, and finally: "Yeah?"

Roger's voice was giddy, almost hysterical. "Undo my restraints, Al! Can you undo my restraints? I have to get up. Undo the straps Al! Can you do that?"

Another pause, and then: "Okay." The lobotomized giant lumbered forward and clumsily undid Roger's restraints. Soon Roger was sitting up rubbing his wrists and ankles. "Well done Al!" he cheered before he gasped and started whispering. "Well done Al," he hissed. "Do you know where my clothes are? The black suit I arrived in today? Do you know where it is?"

"Um, basement," Al mumbled. "They're in the basement. That's it."

"Thanks," Roger smiled as he snuck out the door tiptoed downstairs. This was too good to be true.

He found himself in the reception hall on the ground floor that had the divan and the grandfather clock, but the darkness had drained away the color from his earlier spore addled visit. He found the door to the basement and walked gingerly down the steps and found a light switch. A loud humming, punctuated by occasional bursts of noise, filled the air. He flicked the lights on and muttered. "Well at least _she's_ got power." Electricity in Electric City was a rare thing.

Roger found his things lain out on a table, along with the gangsters' gear. He dressed and filled his pockets quickly, and then went exploring. He found a power room attached to the basement. At least he assumed it was the power room. A tangled mass of wires and cables were spread over the floors and covered the walls. A massive array of switches lined one wall. A loud humming, punctuated with occasional bursts of noise filled the air. The far end of the room was taken up by a series of tightly coiled coppered wire and varnished plates of metal, bolted together in a tight stack. Bright white sparks popped from the device. It didn't look like any generator he'd seen before but who cared?

Soon he found what he was looking for, protective plastic suits, gas masks and metal barrels of herbicide. He started carrying a barrel to the stairs before he set it down. "What am I, an idiot?" he asked out loud. "There are people to do this."

* * *

><p>Jenny Grant awoke the next morning to find cold water being poured in her face. She squeaked and opened her eyes to see Roger fully dressed with an empty glass in his hand. "Wake up, we've got a long way to go," he ordered.<p>

"Not so loud," she groaned as Roger opened the blankets to reveal her clingy white diaphanous nightgown. "My poor little head feels like there's a platoon of military police doing marching drills in there. If you're going to ravage me, wait until I feel better, otherwise kill me and get it over with."

"You won't get any sympathy from me," Roger said as he grasped her wrist and pulled her out of bed.

"Ow!" she squeaked. "You're hurting my wrist!"

"What's the matter, baby?" Roger sneered. "You used to be Zeke Crater's girl. I thought you liked the rough stuff. Now get dressed. I laid some clothes out behind the changing screen, you can dress back there."

Jenny went behind the changing screen and soon Roger heard the sound of a drawer being opened.

"If you're looking for your .32 I took the precaution of removing it from your dresser," Roger drawled. "The same with your letter opener. Quit wasting time and I'll give you a cup of coffee before we go."

"I have to go to the ladies' room," Jenny emerged from the changing screen to protest stiffly.

Roger seized her wrist and walked out the door. "I'll take you," he grunted as Jenny staggered and tripped along after him before he pushed her into the bathroom. "Don't take long," he said as he shut the door.

"You killed my garden!" her voice howled from inside the bathroom. "You killed my little plants!"

"Al and Vince needed something to do, so I gave them your herbicide and told them to spray every plant in your garden. The world is a big enough mess without being filled with your killer weeds." His voice went from scolding to teasing as he called through the door. "You know you really put it away last night. You slept like the dead. We had a busy evening but no matter how much noise we made, we didn't wake you. You should really lay off that stuff."

A gunshot was heard. So was the tinkling of glass.

"Hey! Someone's shooting at me!" Jenny squeaked.

"I didn't want you going outside so I programmed my car to fire at anyone it sees at the window," Roger called. "The first shot is aimed a foot above your head. The next shots won't miss. You weren't thinking of skipping out on me were you?"

"No…" Jenny's whined in a guilty tone. "Wait. Your _car_ can _shoot_ people?"

"It plays a mean game of poker too," Roger quipped. "Come on, hurry up. We're losing daylight."

"Al!" she shouted. "Vince!"

"It's no good Jenny, after we finished with your garden I sent them back to Paradigm City to tell Zeke we're on our way. Now quit wasting time or you won't get any breakfast."

The bathroom door opened to reveal a livid Jenny Grant. "You beast!" she shrieked. "You know darn well that Zeke will kill me if he finds me!"

"That reminds me Jenny, you better pack that antidote for Zeke's condition before we go," Roger said. "If we want to cut a deal with your boyfriend we're going to need all the leverage we can get. Now I hope you washed your hands, I've got breakfast ready. Let's go."

"You _have_ been a busy little bee haven't you?" Jenny sneered as she was led downstairs. Roger didn't let her out of his sight.

"You were right about one thing," the negotiator smirked. "That nap I took made it hard to sleep last night. I was up all evening, searching the house for little concealable goodies that could make life difficult for me. I think I found most of them. Now come on, let's go. Don't worry, I've packed the car. You'll have plenty to wear when we get to Paradigm City."

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: Let's Make A Deal _


	8. Let's Make A Deal

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Eight: Let's Make A Deal_

Soon Roger's long black Cadillac was roaring along the road back to Paradigm City. Roger wore his trademark black suit and sunglasses as he drove silently in the left seat. To his right, Jenny Grant wore a tailored green suit with a jacket worn over a fitted bodice. A long narrow pencil skirt hid seamed black hosiery. Roger had chosen the outfit for the skirt and the matching high heels to make sure that Jenny wouldn't be able to run very fast should she try to escape. Fortunately the outfit was fashionable, but Roger was regretting giving her the wide brimmed hat that went with it. It wasn't practical in the confines of the car, and the wide brim could hide her face and mask her intentions.

"Please don't take me to Zeke," she moaned. Her voice was no longer low and husky; now it was high pitched and almost shrill. Either this was her voice when she wasn't putting on the vamp act or she was scared. "Please, can't we be friends? I know we got off to a bad start but I promise to be good. You can do anything you want with me as long as you don't take me to Zeke. I don't mind. How about we go to the movies? I like the movies, especially the old ones that were made before the Big Amnesia. Do you have a favorite movie Roger?"

"Yes."

Almost a minute passed before Jenny started speaking again. "Me too. My favorite movie is _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_. It's in the vaults at Paradigm HQ and they don't let anybody watch it. It's a story about a girl who is swept away to a magical land where there's lots of pretty colors and she makes friends with strange creatures there. There aren't many copies left. I'll bet you've never seen it. Isn't it strange the way the only surviving movies from over forty years ago are fantasies? Nothing historical. Makes you wonder don't it?"

"No."

"You're right. It really doesn't matter. So what were we talking about? Oh yes. Movies. Of course. You could take me to the movies. Then you could take me home and we'd be such good friends. That's right. Movies. Do you have a favorite movie?"

"Yep."

"Listen to me, I'm babbling," she giggled nervously. "I'm so silly, I'm practically hysterical. I already asked you that didn't I? Well silly me. I told you my favorite movie didn't I? I never asked you what yours was. What's the name of your favorite movie, Roger?"

"The General."

"Oh I've seen that one!" she gushed. "Buster Keaton. It takes place in a mythical land where there's a war and a train and all the film is black and white doesn't it? And nobody really talks they just put up placards every once and while. So that's your favorite movie. Interesting. Why is that your favorite movie Roger?"

"It's silent."

"Humph," she grunted before crossing her arms and glaring angrily out at the road ahead of them. She gasped as Roger stepped on the accelerator. It was a long drive back to Paradigm City, but Roger was determined to make good time.

* * *

><p>Back in Paradigm City, Zeke Crater was not a happy man. Thanks to the bizarre changes to his body, it was hard to define him as a 'man' in the first place. "Keep looking!" he barked from behind his desk at the Sailor's Club. "It's almost ten miles of open territory between my house and Paradigm City. Get with it, she can't be that hard to find!"<p>

"Uh, boss, have you considered that maybe she busted into a million pieces on the jagged rocks below?" Out of all the men assembled only 'Knuckles' would say anything. "I looked over the side. Not even an android could survive that."

"Use your head, Knuckles," Zeke muttered. "She's an android, see? She don't think like we do. Everything's a matter o' math wit' robots. Her electrical brain weighed th' odds before makin' that jump. I can't believe she'd a jumped unless her chances were at least fifty-fifty. She won't drown like a human girl would an' you can bet she's tryin' t' get back the negotiator's place. If you can't find her on the road tell the boys we got in the negotiator's neighborhood to keep an eye out for her. What are ya all standin' around for? Get on it! Now!"

* * *

><p>As the long black Cadillac got closer to Paradigm, the land became drier and more barren. Whatever had struck the world forty years ago had obviously made populated areas a priority. The noonday sun beat down on the cracked tarmac mercilessly as the road followed the useless power lines back to the dystopian metropolis that was Paradigm City.<p>

Jenny Grant broke the silence. Not surprising. According to Dorothy her brother Eugene loved to talk and last year had kept the lovely android as a captive audience. It only made sense that his sister couldn't keep her mouth shut either.

"So… you really didn't know about those things in your body until I told you?"

"No," he muttered while continuing to concentrate on the road.

"So you really don't know anything about them?" she prodded.

"Nope."

"You know I've got a theory on those," she said in an attempt to make conversation. "I think those things are little robots. Little robots that have been programmed with a template of your genetic structure. They're designed to keep you exactly the way you are now. They probably break down your food better than your digestive system does. You'll never get fat. I wouldn't be surprised if they slowed down or even stopped your aging."

"Mm."

"I said I wouldn't be surprised if they slowed down your aging, or even reversed it," she repeated. "Don't you see? They could heal any wound, even on the microscopic level. The real limitation is that you'll always need food. And oxygen. And enough of your body intact and alive for the little guys to have something to work with of course. Basically if you could survive your injury in the first place with enough time and a steady diet you could probably heal anything. No permanent injuries. You probably never suffer from aches and pains do you?"

"My ears hurt," he muttered. "There's this high-pitched squeaky noise that keeps irritating them."

"The thing is, all it takes is one malfunction in your little guys' programming and your own body's defenses would kill you," Jenny continued. "So without an outside source keeping an eye on those little guys you're basically a ticking time bomb. Do you have an outside source that's in contact with your little nanobots to keep them from malfunctioning? Do you have any way to reboot them?"

"I know someone I'd like to boot," Roger muttered. How much longer would he have to listen to this crazy woman?

* * *

><p>In the meantime, miles away a slender young girl walked up a lonely road on the coast. The petite teenager was dressed in a water stained reddish black dress that had a white ruffled collar and formal white cuffs. Her legs and feet were in torn black stockings, but she had lost her shoes. The bangs of her red pageboy haircut were broken by what appeared to be a dark metal barrette, but in reality was a slight depression in her head. Her skin was alabaster white, her features were dainty and her dark violet eyes scanned the road.<p>

Dorothy Wayneright had spent last night underwater. The plunge off the cliff into the crashing waves had lost Dorothy her shoes and the barrette that concealed the cover to her memory drive. She hadn't activated the halogen light hidden in her head because as long as she kept it shut her android body was waterproof. She had allowed her weight to take her to the bottom of the ocean floor and stayed there until early morning. The morning sun and the elevation of the underwater shoals told her the difference between east and west and she climbed out the ocean and made her way along the cliffs of the rocky beach until she found a place where the terrain was gentle enough to let her reach the road. She thought she knew how to get to Paradigm City so she started walking. If she went in the wrong direction the city lights would tell her as soon as the sun went down.

* * *

><p>In the meantime, on the way back to Paradigm City Jenny Grant continued to drone on. "So I'm thinking, what are the commercial applications of your little friends? If they're what I think they are, they could be immortality in a bottle. Think of what they could do for health care! Of course, right now they're set for your DNA pattern, so they'd be useless to lethal for anyone else. But if they could be programmed to accept other patterns just think of the possibilities."<p>

Without a word, Roger took his foot off the accelerator and allowed the car to coast to a stop.

"I don't understand," Jenny said uneasily. "Why are we stopping?"

"I need to get something out of the trunk," Roger said as he got out of the car. "I'll be right back."

Soon Roger's long black Cadillac was speeding down the highway towards Paradigm City. Roger was driving, his face smiling as he concentrated on the road. Jenny was still in the passenger seat, and she was frowning. She was frowning because Roger had tied her up and put a gag in her mouth.

When he reached a straight section of the road, the negotiator pulled a microphone out of the dashboard and activated the radio. A monochromatic television screen soon displayed Norman's mustached face. "Yes Master Roger?"

"Norman," Roger nodded. "Any calls while I've been out?"

"Yes sir," the butler nodded. "A call from Colonel Dastun this morning but I told him you were out on business. Two possible clients called and a succession of calls from an uneducated man who refused to give his name."

"Zeke Crater or his boys probably want to know where I am," Roger smiled grimly. "Call the Sailor's Club and tell them that I've made progress with my negotiations. If they ask you to elaborate tell them that's all the information you have."

* * *

><p>When she spied a car in the distance, Dorothy quickly darted to the edge of the road. With a terrific leap she cleared over ten feet to hide behind some a rocky outcropping protruding out of the ground. By jumping she had avoided leaving any telltale footprints between the road and her hiding place. It wasn't likely that anyone else but Zeke Crater would use this road so the girl concealed herself at the first sign of an automobile on the horizon. Few people had cars anymore and none of the cars that passed her were military vehicles so she had to assume they were Crater's search parties looking for her. Fortunately there was a lot of territory for them to cover and Dorothy was able to make her way along to the coast to the war torn metropolis of Paradigm City.<p>

Paradigm City was a maze. After the attack by Big Fau and the Union it was doubly so and Dorothy didn't want to get lost in the dangerous warren that was the last bastion of humanity in the known world. Her current predicament was proof that the streets weren't safe, not even during the day. She stayed by the coast until she entered Paradigm's dock district and looked for a public place where she could use a telephone. If she could call the mansion, either Roger or Norman could pick her up but few people outside the shattered domes had working telephones. Her best bet was a public business of some type, perhaps an eatery.

* * *

><p>In the heart of the city, outside of the domes that protected the neighborhoods and estates of the rich, stood a spacious tower that was formerly a bank before the disaster that left Paradigm City without memories. Roger Smith had converted this building into his personal abode. The building was large enough to hide the Big O inside. It was built over the nexus of the underground transportation system that Paradigm had enjoyed until four decades ago. The suites at the top floors were decorated like a Victorian mansion; the roof was a patio that had tasteful sculpture and a garden.<p>

Despite the short stop Roger made great time. The drive back to Paradigm City was almost entirely downhill and Roger was able to get back before sundown. Getting through the damaged streets was something else, though. By the time he got home in the western sky behind him.

The black Cadillac drove into the spacious hangar that contained the black megadeus. Roger had drugged Jenny into unconsciousness. There was no point letting her see the Big O, too many people knew he piloted the black megadeus as it was. Norman was there with a gurney for her when he arrived.

"Enjoy your date last night sir?" the butler quipped as his master got out of the car. "Looks like things became rather risqué."

"Hardly," Roger grunted as he pulled Jenny out of the passenger seat and placed her on the gurney. "I can't remember when I've had a worse time with a woman. Is her room ready for her?"

"Exactly as you asked for sir," Norman assured him.

"Good," Roger nodded as he pushed the gurney to the elevator. "In the meantime, Crater's men saw me arrive. I had the windows tinted so they couldn't tell I had Miss Grant but it won't be long before they try to break in. Prepare the mansion for siege conditions."

"Very well sir," Norman took an exposed elevator up to a catwalk before he walked over to a series of large levers set in the wall. As he threw the switches metal shutters lowered over every window in the building.

Jenny's eyes opened as the metal shutter slammed down in the room she was in. She found herself in Roger's arms as he placed her on a bed. "Ooh, where am I?" she muttered. "Hey!" she squeaked as Roger wheeled the gurney out of the room.

"See at dinner," Roger said as Norman set her suitcases down. "In the meantime, make yourself at home."

"Wait! Where are you going?" she squeaked as Roger closed the door and locked it. "You can't just leave me! It's as dark as a bat cave in here!"

"What now, sir?" Norman asked as they walked into the parlor.

"Now we call the Sailor's Club and arrange the swap," Roger said as he picked up the phone. "Operator, get me the Sailor's Club. Harbor district, 21-555."

"Do you think that Mister Crater will keep his word sir?" Norman asked with a hint of anxiety.

"He better if he wants Jenny Grant's formula," Roger grunted. "Otherwise he'll remain a cockroach for the rest of his very short life. Hello. Roger Smith here. Get me Zeke Crater."

In the bar of the Sailor's Club the bartender wasn't helpful. "Ain't nobody here by that name."

Roger swore under his breath. Guys like Crater never used the telephone unless they talked in code. Between the operator and the police you never knew who was listening in. Time to bluster his way through. "Now listen to me you little punk. If you don't put Crater on the line right now it will be race between me and your boss to make sure you regret it. If I was you I'd put him on _right now_."

"I'll see if he's available," the bartender said.

Soon another voice was on the phone. "What can I do for you Mister Smith?"

"You can put Dorothy on the phone right now," Roger said.

"Dunno what you're talkin' about Mister Smith," Crater purred. "And neither does anybody who might be listenin' in, if you get my drift. But if you're talkin' about that negotiation I hired ya for I'm all ears."

Great. Crater was a walking cockroach and he was still playing coy.

"Fine," Roger sneered. "I just hope you have my payment. Dorothy Wayneright better be returned home safe and sound without a mark on her, or I'll pour your magic potion down the drain and you'll never see Jenny Grant again. I want proof that Dorothy's in one piece before I deal, and taking your word for it doesn't cut it. I want to talk to her, and otherwise no deal."

"You gotta lotta brass talkin' to me like that," Crater grunted.

"Crater you have something I want and I've got something _you_ want," Roger snapped. "I'm going to get Dorothy Wayneright back, with or without your help, and for your sake it better be with."

"Are you threatenin' me?" Crater growled.

"No. Just stating a fact. You better bring her back to me in mint condition or it will be the last mistake you'll ever make. Call me when she can get to a phone." With that, Roger hung up.

Roger exhaled. Now that he had Jenny and her precious serum he had leverage over Crater. The problem was that he couldn't predict the gangster's impulsiveness. Dorothy wasn't out of the woods yet.

* * *

><p>Back in the Sailor's Club, Crater put down the phone. "What now boss?" Knuckles asked him.<p>

"Without the android we only got one choice," Crater shrugged. "Now we make sure that Mister Smith doesn't live to see another sunrise."

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: What Do We Have Here?_


	9. What Have We Here?

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Nine: What Have We Here?_

Jenny Grant was sitting on the couch in the ground floor parlor, eating a salad from a bowl that was placed on a silver tray that was on her lap. "Why am I eating on this little tray?" she asked Roger who was seated on the divan opposite her.

"When it comes to murderers I have a personal rule," Roger said. "I never allow a murderer to eat at my table. To be honest, I'm breaking enough rules just by letting you eat in the house."

"That's fine talk coming from you," Jenny frowned. "Just how many people have you killed, Mister Roger the Negotiator?"

"Every time I've taken a life it's been in self-defense," Roger said. "Although I'm seriously tempted to break that rule, so if I were you I wouldn't complain."

"What happened back at my house was self-defense also!" Jenny insisted. "If Al and Vince would have taken me back to Zeke he would have killed me! And now it looks like you're about to do the same thing as they were!"

"What you did to those two is too horrible to talk about," Roger snorted.

"Like using a gun is better," Jenny sniffed.

"I don't use guns, not handguns at least," Roger shrugged. "My car has machineguns, but then again, it _is_ a machine."

"So what? You're sending me to my death," Jenny pouted. "What I did was entirely justified. You act so high and mighty but you're working for Zeke too. How do you justify that?"

Roger looked away. "I'm not working for him by choice."

"So what sort of pull does he have over you?" Jenny asked him. "Does he have pictures of you? Love letters you've written maybe? I'd say he kidnapped your wife but you don't seem the marrying type."

Roger glowered at her.

Jenny's already large eyes opened even wider. "He _did_ kidnap somebody didn't he? Who was it? Wife? Child? Sister?"

"A friend of mine," Roger admitted.

"A lady friend?" Jenny asked impishly.

"She's more of a lady than you are," he snorted as he crossed his arms and tried to look nonchalant.

"So… Zeke has your lady friend and is offering to trade her for me, is that it?" the mad scientist smirked. "So what is she like?"

"Who? Dorothy?" Roger kicked himself for letting her name slip. The last thing he need was give this mental case psychological ammunition to use against him. "She's very quiet." Nothing like you, his eyes told her.

"Just the way you like them, hm?" Jenny needled.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"There is nothing worse than a woman who speaks her mind," the little scientist snorted. "Men don't like a woman who speaks her mind.

Roger squirmed uncomfortably.

"I can imagine your little Dorothy pretty well," Jenny sneered. "You've got her trained just the way you like her don't you? I'll bet she dresses in drab, boring styles and cleans the house all day." When she saw Roger wince at that remark she continued her attack. "Until it's time for her to take a break, that is. Then it's off to the kitchen. You probably keep her cooped up don't you? It wouldn't do for her to go off and make new friends. They'd probably put ideas in her head, and we mustn't have that! Girls have no right to become smart or go around thinking…"

"Knock it off!" Roger growled. "I don't know what your experience with men has been, but if you pick people like Crater to hang out with it's your own fault! Don't go transferring your problems onto me!"

"If what I said isn't true then why are you getting so upset?" she smiled knowingly. "Admit it, the reason you like her so much is because she's a perfect doormat. If you liked her just for her looks you could go out and get another one. You've got her nicely whipped, don't you? _I_ wouldn't mind being whipped nicely," she winked.

"You're so twisted," Roger shook his head.

"But am I right?" she asked coyly. "I'm right aren't I?" When Roger didn't answer she continued. "Of course I'm right. You're a man. She's not. It's alright to lie to me sweetie but there's no point lying to yourself. Just accept yourself as the cad you are and you'll be fine. Tell me, is she as pretty as me?"

"Yes," Roger grunted.

"Younger than me?"

"Much."

"Ah, that explains it," Jenny mocked. "You yearn for someone young and innocent, just like _you_ used to be."

"Finish your dinner so I can lock you in your room again," Roger growled. "The sooner I can get you out of my house, the better."

"And you call yourself a gentleman," she sniffed as she returned to her meal.

"Oh yeah and by the way, I was never innocent," he winked.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, Dorothy Wayneright wandered through the waterfront district looking for a taxicab or a public place where she could call home. Finally she found a place that was open and even had cars parked outside. Without pausing she walked through the doorway under the flickering neon sign that read 'Sailor's Club'.<p>

The bar was almost just inside the door. Dorothy's toes stuck out of her stockings as she walked across the sawdust covered floor to speak with the bartender. "Excuse me, sir," she said quietly. "May I use your phone? I need to call home."

The bartender took in her disheveled appearance. "Are you lost little missy?"

"I know I'm in a building in the harbor district of Paradigm City if that's what you mean," she replied a level even tone. "But if you want to know if I've ever been in this establishment before then no, I haven't."

"Well-well-well, what do we have here?" a familiar voice sneered. Dorothy turned to see a man in a pinstripe suit with a pistol in his hand. She recognized him as one of her abductors, the one with the bruised face, the one they called 'Knuckles' McGee. "Boy did _you_ choose the wrong bar to go in! Looks like Heaven's Day has come a little early. Come on, sister. The boss wants to talk to you." He gestured with his gun. "This way. Behind the bar. In the back."

Dorothy's neck servos hummed as she surveyed the clientele of the Sailor's Club. The men who sat at the tables were nearly all burly men in pinstripe suits. She recognized most of their faces as Zeke Crater's henchmen. She had escaped Crater's home only to blunder into his headquarters. Without a word she walked ahead of the gunman until she was in the office looking at Zeke Crater himself.

"Well well, I never thought I'd see y_ou_ again," Zeke Crater actually rose from his desk to greet her. "I'm impressed, Knuckles. How'd you find her?"

"There's only one road from your house back to Paradigm City," Knuckles smiled. "I just had the boys keep a lookout for her, that's all. They found the silly dame walkin' in the middle of the road right out in the open."

"That was smart thinkin'," Zeke nodded stiffly. "Good job Knuckles."

"I walked into the Sailor's Club by mistake," Dorothy corrected. "I didn't even know this was your headquarters until I came in and asked if I could use the telephone."

Knuckles' face fell but Zeke's face barely moved as the crime boss cackled manically. "She just walked in! Don't that beat all! After throwin' herself off a cliff to get away she just walks in! That's a good one!" Crater's tone then turned menacing. "You did the right thing startin' off with a joke doll-face after the stunt you pulled!" He eyed her suspiciously and added. "That's a pretty good sucker punch you got. If you would have hit Knuckles that hard you would have broken his ribs. I thought that androids can't harm humans."

"Yes, I've heard that too," she said.

The room was so quiet that Dorothy could hear voices from back in the bar. Crater's eyes narrowed under his masklike face. "So why could ya hit _me_?" he growled as he advanced on her. Dorothy could hear Knuckles take a step back.

"I don't understand the question," Dorothy said calmly.

"If androids can't harm humans why could you hit me with enough force to tear a man's heart out?" Crater demanded.

"I'm sorry, did you consider yourself human?" Dorothy asked.

"Why you lousy doll!" with one hand he picked her up by her neck. Dorothy's eyes widened as her feet dangled above the floor. "I ought'a take you apart!" He looked up at Dorothy's still form. She wasn't struggling. She wasn't gasping for breath or clutching at his arm. She was just hanging in the air, not even looking at him, and at two hundred and eighty pounds she was getting heavy. He lowered her to the ground and scrutinized her closely. "That's what you want, isn't it? That way there will be nothing to stop your precious boyfriend from calling his friends at the military police. Well you don't get out that easy, sister. I didn't get to own this town by throwing away my markers. Siddown."

Dorothy sat.

"And you!" Crater picked Knuckles up by his neck. Unlike Dorothy Wayneright, Knuckles McGee gasped for breath, struggled, kicked, and clawed at Crater's hand. "You ever lie to me again and you won't have a tongue to lie with!" Crater opened the door to his office with his other hand. "Now git outta here!" he tossed his henchman out the door and slammed it shut. "You an' me need to have a little talk, doll-face," he muttered as he walked back behind the desk.

"What about?"

"You gotta lotta brass testin' me like that," he grunted. "You better not push me darlin' 'cause after I came down with my uh, condition I gotta hard time controllin' my temper."

"So I see."

"No. So _I_ see," Crater sneered. "You're willin' to go to the junkyard in order to keep your boyfriend safe. That's real interestin' doll-face. That means I gotta way to control you now."

"How so?"

"You get outta line or try to get away and I'll send some boys down Roger Smith's way an' tell 'em to put a bullet in 'im," Crater snapped. "Maybe _your_ life means nuttin' to you, but I'll bet _his_ life does. Run off like that again and the only time you'll see him again is at his funeral. Get me?"

"Yes."

"Good," he nodded. "Now I gotta make a phone call, toots. You're boyfriend wants ta talk to you and you're goin' t' let 'im know that you're still available. Get out of line and I'll remove your feet so you can't run away."

"I understand."

* * *

><p>Soon Roger's telephone was ringing. "Roger Smith's residence," Norman greeted when he picked it up. "Yes, Mister Crater, we were expecting your call. One moment please." He carried the telephone on a small disk shaped metal tray to the ground floor parlor. "Master Roger, there's a call from Mister Crater for you."<p>

"Thank you Norman," Roger said as he took the phone from him. "Roger Smith here. You willing to play ball Mister Crater?"

"Boy, you and your android friend are cut from the same cloth, ain't 'cha?" Crater said on his end of the line. "I got someone you've been itchin' to talk with wit' me and I'm puttin' her on the line now." He placed the receiver in Dorothy's face. "Say somthin' to your boyfriend, doll-face."

"Hello Roger," she said in her calm stilted voice. "How are you?"

"Are you okay?" Roger asked.

"My clothes are a mess, and I need some new shoes," she admitted.

"What do you mean by that?" Roger asked. "What did they do to you?"

"Sorry, Smitty," Crater's voice said through the line. "No more code words between you two. Now are we going to deal or what?"

"Where shall we make the exchange?" Roger asked.

"The warehouse at the corner of Harbor and Fifty-third Street," Crater grunted. "Be there in an hour. Come alone, just you and Jenny. If you bring any of your friends in the military police with you I'll know and you'll have to bargain for your girlfriend a piece at a time. Don't be late."

Roger grunted in irritation as he heard Crater hang up. "We've got an hour," he told Norman. "Miss Grant, we've got to get you ready. Norman, get my gear."

"At once sir."

* * *

><p>The warehouse at Harbor and Fifty-third was a huge cavernous building dominated by a large cargo crane. It was placed right by the waterfront and Crater had motorboats outside in case Roger brought the military police with him. In the warehouse was a limousine where Dorothy waited with Zeke Crater and three other men. The mutated crime boss spoke into a telephone whose long cables snaked out the car window to disappear into the darkness. "Any sign of the negotiator?"<p>

"Not yet boss," said a voice through the line. "Wait, I see somethin'! There's a car comin' down the street and he's driving like a maniac!"

At that moment, the brick wall on the fall side of the warehouse burst into a shower of fragments to disgorge the long black Cadillac that Roger drove. The car slid across the floor and spun three hundred and sixty degrees until it skidded to a stop less than twenty feet from Crater's limousine.

The men in Crater's car stared in disbelief as the door to the Cadillac opened and Roger Smith stepped out. "I believe we have an appointment, Mister Crater," the negotiator purred.

Crater exited his car with two of his men. "You sure know how to make an entrance, Mister Negotiator," the crime boss admitted grudgingly.

"All you said was that I had to bring Miss Grant and come alone," Roger said as he walked over to the passenger side of his car. "As long as I showed up on time I assumed the rest was open. Where's Dorothy Wayneright?"

"In the car," Crater gestured stiffly with his head. "Where's Jenny Grant?"

"Right here," Roger opened the passenger door and pulled Jenny out. He reached into his pocket and displayed a syringe filled with an amber fluid. "And here's that serum that's got you so worked up." He opened Jenny's purse and placed it inside. "You can have Miss Grant and her miraculous formula, Crater. You can have it all if you give Miss Wayneright back."

"Okay," Crater nodded to a man in the backseat of his car.

The door opened and the third gangster exited the limo and pulled Dorothy out with him. Dorothy's hands were bound behind her. Her reddish black dress was water-stained and there were runs in her stockings. Her shoes were missing and her snow white toes poked out of her damaged socks. Her hair was askew and her barrette was missing, exposing the metal band that protected her memory drive to view.

"Stupid punks," Roger muttered under his breath. "Even _my_ patience has limits." In a louder voice he said "Okay, send her over."

"Jenny first!" Crater insisted.

"No deal, Mister Crater," Roger shook his head. "You've got me outnumbered, and I suspect that Miss Wayneright and I will need to leave quickly once our business is concluded. Send Dorothy over to me first."

Crater looked at his hostage and nodded to her. Dorothy started walking.

"Don't worry, Dorothy, everything will be okay," he assured her as she approached him. When Dorothy reached him, she stared at him without saying a word. "Dorothy? Are you all right? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Without warning the girl jumped up and delivered a kick that sent Roger flying.

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: Dirty Pool _


	10. Dirty Pool

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Ten: Dirty Pool_

A shot rang out. Jenny screamed as her wide brimmed hat was torn from her head.

"Roger, they've got a sniper!" Dorothy shouted as she body slammed Jenny and knocked her to the ground.

"Trigger, you idiot!" Crater yelled. "You missed!"

"Sorry boss!" a gangster hiding in the control cab of the cargo crane shouted back. He cocked his rifle, but didn't have a target. Dorothy had not only knocked Roger down, but had knocked him back behind his car. Dorothy and Jenny were on the ground too, and they were still visible, but Trigger wasn't aiming at them.

The three gunmen standing beside Crater pulled out their automatic pistols and pointed them at Roger, Dorothy, and Jenny.

Roger sat up and reached into his pocket to extract what appeared to be a black joystick lever and pulled a telescoping antenna out of the end that didn't have a red button. "Now-now," he scolded as he stood up and walked back to Dorothy and Jenny. "Don't do anything hasty. Let's all calm down. You don't want this to blow up in your face, Mister Crater."

"What's that supposed to be?" the mutated crime lord asked.

"A dead man's switch," Roger smirked as he pulled Jenny Grant to her feet.

"You gonna tell me you got a bomb in your car?" the gang boss asked skeptically.

"Nope," Roger shook his head. "You know that men like us love our cars far too much for that." He opened Jenny's green jacket to reveal red sticks of dynamite strapped to her bodice. Curly spaghetti thin wires attached to a flat circuit board that was placed in the center. "I got a bomb on your girlfriend."

"Don't try anything Zeke!" Jenny screeched. "He's crazy! He'll do it!"

"Shaddap Jenny!" Crater shouted back.

"Miss Grant is holding the only sample of the cure for your condition Mister Crater," Roger announced as he held out the joystick and pressed the red button with his thumb. "If I take my thumb off this button you lose both the serum and the only scientist in the world who can manufacture it. What's it going to be, Mister Crater?"

"You idiot!" Crater growled. "You'll kill yourself too!"

"I was a dead man the moment I got out of my car and we both know it," Roger said. "I didn't want to do this but you're playing dirty pool Crater. The way I figure it, this is the only way I'm walking out of here."

Crater's masklike face gave nothing away but his underneath his suit and cape his unnatural body was trembling with rage.

"What do we do boss?" the gangster known as 'Knuckles' McGee asked.

"Shaddap Knuckles!" Crater snapped. "Can't you see I'm thinkin'?"

"This isn't the first time I've had to negotiate with someone who wasn't entirely trustworthy," Roger smirked. "Don't forget, I do this for a living. What's it going to be, Crater? Are you willing to negotiate like a reasonable man, or do I blow us all to kingdom come?"

"What do you propose?" the crime lord asked.

"Well Crater, my first proposal is that we both fulfill our sides of the original bargain," Roger purred. "Dorothy Wayneright goes with me, Jenny Grant and her serum goes with you, and we both try to forget that we ever met each other."

"Nothin' doin'!" the gangster growled. "As soon as you and the android are safe you'd blow me and Jenny straight to Hades!"

"I had a feeling you'd see it that way, so I have an alternate proposal," Roger continued. "Jenny Grant administers the antidote for your condition and leaves with Miss Wayneright and me. That way you get your cure and the ladies and I get our lives."

"Really?" a trembling Jenny Grant smiled hesitantly. "Is it true? You're not going to blow me up or leave me with Zeke?"

Roger's grin was actually warm. "Miss Grant, I may be a cad enough to risk your life but I'm too much of a gentleman to sacrifice it on purpose. You didn't really think I was going to leave you with Zeke Crater did you?"

"Oh thank you! Thank you!" she grinned nervously.

"Roger, who's she?" Dorothy asked as she sat on the floor.

Roger used his spare hand to help the darling android to her feet. "Dorothy, I'd like to introduce you to Jenny Grant, Eugene Grant's kid sister."

"_Eugene _Grant did you say?" Dorothy's cool expression seemed even colder.

"That's right. And she's just as dangerous as her brother was," the negotiator said as used his other hand to reach into his jacket and extract a switchblade knife. "Now turn around so I can cut your bonds."

"_You_ better pay more attention to your other hand Roger," Dorothy calmly warned.

Roger glanced at the dead man's switch in his hand as if he had forgotten about it. "What? Oh yes! Perhaps I should just hand you the knife. Once you get your bonds started you should be able to break free without having to cut all the way. Here you go, Dorothy."

Dorothy turned her back to Roger and he placed the switchblade in her hand.

"What makes you think you can get away with this?" Crater growled.

"Mister Crater, you're angry now but after you get back to normal I have a feeling you'll see the world a whole new way," Roger grinned. "Believe me; the last thing I want is for you to hold a grudge against me. It's in both my and Miss Grant's best interest that we restore you to normal. I don't expect you to feel gratitude toward me but I suspect a vendetta won't be a priority. Miss Grant here will probably have to go into hiding for the rest of her life but at least Miss Wayneright and I should be able to show our faces in public. Come on Mister Crater, we can both win. I found Jenny Grant and retrieved the serum just like you asked me to. I fulfilled my end of the bargain. The question is can you fulfill yours?"

Crater's large dark eyes narrowed under his stiff masklike face and the warehouse was quiet for a moment. Then his body shook with laughter. "You got 'em so big, it's a wonder you can get your pants on in the morning, Smith!" the crime boss laughed. "I gotta hand it to you. Once you start a job you always see it through. Okay, we'll try it your way. If this is a double cross, there won't be any place in Paradigm City that you can hide. Send Jenny over."

"With pleasure Mister Crater," Roger nodded. He leaned over to Jenny. "That's your cue Miss Grant. Administer the proper dosage so we can all go home."

"Oh… kay…" she sang nervously. She walked timidly over to Crater. "Hello Zeke, you look good. How's life treating you?"

Crater raised his hand to strike her.

"Careful Zeke!" Roger shouted in warning. "Try to remember that she's carrying explosives! You don't want to set it off do you?"

Crater looked over Jenny's shoulder at Roger. Despite the neutral expression on his face his eyes were still human enough to convey utter hatred. He slowly lowered his hand and cleared his throat. "Hiya Jenny. Dynamite looks good on ya. Where do you get off stealin' from me and turnin' me into a freak, anyway?"

"That's fine talk coming from you," Jenny pouted. "You play around with every girl in town and expect me to just take it! I didn't expect you to be loyal but you couldn't expect me to tolerate you doing it right in front of me like that!"

"What did you expect after givin' me those super steroids?" Crater snapped. "They increased my appetite three times over, for cryin' out loud! Pretty soon I was goin' through women because I had to an' not 'cause I wanted to!"

"Don't give me that; you enjoyed it," Jenny frowned. "You know darn well you loved being stronger and faster and being more virile than everybody else, and I can't help it if there were a few side effects. I didn't have it ready for the general public yet and you didn't care. You just had to have everything you wanted right now." She snapped her fingers for emphasis. "Boom! Right when you wanted it with no waiting. Honestly you're like a child Zeke. If you didn't make me feel so young I would have never…"

"You should be happy I took you in when Paradigm threw you out or you'd be sellin' pencils you wacky little tart!"

"You broke my heart, Zeke!" Jenny shrieked. "Don't you understand? You broke my heart! It's always about you isn't it? You-you-you! That's all you think about!"

"You turned me into a monster, you crazy witch!"

"Don't be silly," Jenny said in a reasonable voice. "You already _were_ a monster Zeke, but I loved you anyway. I loved you and you walked all over me. If it weren't for my treatments you could have never satisfied all the women you cheated on me with."

"I ought'a kill you right now!" Crater seized Jenny by her neck.

"The antidote Crater!" Roger called. "She hasn't given you the antidote yet!"

Crater glanced over at Roger and Dorothy and released Jenny, who clutched at her throat. "He your new boy-toy, Jenny?"

"I wish," she coughed as she straightened her jacket. "He may have knocked me out, tied me up, and taken me prisoner but he's still more of a gentleman than you'll ever be Zeke. Plus unlike you he'll do anything for the girl he loves."

"And he brought you here to me," Zeke grunted. "Some gentleman."

Jenny turned to glare at Roger. "That's right! I was perfectly safe before you abducted me! What did I ever do to you?"

"You tried to kill me by putting fungus in my brain and then you held me captive," Roger shrugged.

"I mean before that?" Jenny demanded. "What gives you the right to take me from my house and deliver me to certain death?"

"Don't look at me," Roger shook his head. "This is between you and him. Now get this over with. My thumb is getting tired."

"You… you... beast!" Jenny exclaimed. "Are all men this heartless?" She turned back to the crime boss. "What happened to us Zeke? How did you become the loathsome underhanded brute who forsook me? What happened to the loathsome underhanded brute I fell in love with?"

"Roger let go of the button," a now free Dorothy said as she handed his switchblade back to him.

"This close to them?" Roger asked her as he pocketed the knife. "Dorothy we're barely fifteen feet away! We'd be caught in the explosion too."

"That would be acceptable," the little android said.

"My goodness Zeke, look at you!" Jenny scolded. "Even now you can't look me in the eye! Instead of looking at my face, you're staring at my chest! You're disgusting!" She closed her jacket protectively but Crater opened it again.

"I'm not lookin' at your chest you silly broad, I'm lookin' at your dynamite!" Crater growled. Jenny screamed as he pulled a stick off her bodice. Crater's unnaturally dark eyes widened as much as his unmoving face would allow. "What the? These aren't sticks of dynamite! These are road flares!"

"Get in the car, Dorothy!" Roger cried.

"Get away from the car, Roger!" the girl retorted.

A huge disk shaped electromagnet slammed down on Roger's car, sending fragments of broken glass in all directions. Roger and Dorothy leapt away and were now rolling on the floor trying to cover themselves.

"God, I hate crane operated electromagnets!" Roger grunted as he brushed broken glass off his neck to keep it from going down his back when he stood up.

"_You_ hate crane operated electromagnets?" Dorothy said.

They got to their feet and stared down the barrels of the gangster's guns.

"Well, well, well, Smith, looks like the shoe's on the other foot now." Even though Zeke Crater's face couldn't smirk, his voice was smug. "Who's going to scrape who off the bottom of his shoe now, tough guy?"

"What do we do now, Roger?" Dorothy asked.

"Give me a minute," Roger hissed.

"You don't have a minute!" Crater snapped. "Nobody lies to me, negotiator! How do I know that syringe you put in Jenny's purse even has the antidote? You tried a double cross and now it's backfired!"

"I never tried to double cross you," Roger insisted. "You wanted me to deliver Jenny Grant and her serum and I've done that. I just wanted to go home when this was over, that's all!"

"This is too important to me for you to pull somethin'!" Crater insisted as he pulled a revolver out of his coat. "You should've delivered service with a smile, Smitty! Nobody disrespects me, and nobody lies to me!"

"That's not true," Dorothy said.

"What?" Crater blinked. "What's not true?"

"That nobody lies to you," Dorothy replied. "That's not true. Knuckles lied to you in his office just today."

"Oh yeah," Crater nodded. "That's right." He pointed his gun at 'Knuckles' McGee and pulled the trigger. The noise of the gunshot and the sound of the henchman hitting the ground drowned out the brief cry that was the last thing Knuckles ever said. Crater pointed his pistol at Roger again. "As I was sayin': Nobody lies to me Negotiator, and nobody tries to cheat me either!"

The cavity in Dorothy's head opened and a blinding light shone in the gangster's faces. It was especially bright for Zeke Crater; in his mutated state, his eyes were nearly all pupil. Crater used his gun hand to shield his eyes and that's when two hundred and eighty pounds of female android tackled him.

While Crater's men were distracted, Roger reached into his pocket and tossed a tiny sphere at their feet. Two holes appeared in the sphere and smoke obscured their vision as they clutched at their faces. "Tear gas!" one of them choked before Roger punched him in the jaw. Roger chopped at a second gunman's wrist, disarming him before pushing him into the third.

Meantime, Crater was on his back, struggling with Dorothy Wayneright. Both of her little hands were clamped around Crater's wrist, and the little android's grip was like a vise. The bulges under Crater's shirt and waistcoat tore free to reveal four jointed whips that ended in sharp deadly hooks. They extended from under his armpits to claw at Dorothy's back, shredding her clothing and her synthetic flesh. In response the android used her knee to pound on Crater's abdomen, but her she didn't let go of his gun hand. "Get off me, you stupid doll!" he cried.

"Let go of your gun," she retorted.

"Well it's about time I was going," Jenny said as she crept to a door. "Eek!" She was knocked down when the door burst open and more of Crater's men entered the warehouse.

"Get off him!" the gangster in front said as he pointed his automatic pistol at Roger. "Let go of him or I drill your boyfriend!"

"No," Dorothy said quietly. "You're going to kill him anyway."

"Looks like we've got a standoff gentlemen," Roger announced to Crater's men. "If you don't lower your guns, I'll command my android to kill your boss. What's it going to be?"

"Don't give me that!" the lead gangster growled. "Everybody knows that androids can't harm humans!"

"Does Zeke Crater look human?" Roger smirked.

The assembled gangsters paused.

That's she when she got off him. No, that's when she rose into the air and clung to Crater's gun arm as the electromagnet hummed above her. Soon she flew up into the air clutching Crater's pistol before slamming into the unyielding surface of the electromagnet with a metallic clang. She squirmed as she tried to move but it was no good. She was held fast.

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: _Hell Hath No Fury _ _


	11. Hell Hath No Fury

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Eleven: Hell Hath No Fury_

"Dorothy!" Roger cried, helpless as he watched the young android stick to the electromagnet hanging above like a bug stuck on flypaper. He had backed away when the gangsters burst into the warehouse, so Dorothy was hanging directly above the empty space between the blackclad negotiator and Crater's men.

"Say your prayers, negotiator!" Crater growled as he scuttled to his feet and hid his extra limbs under his flowing cape. "Boys, take Mister Smith out to the end of the pier and take him for a swim."

"With pleasure boss," the lead gangster said as they started forward. "Hey!" Suddenly, Crater's men had to grip their pistols with both hands. Then their guns were wrenched from their hands and flew up in the air to stick on the suspended electromagnet with Dorothy. Switchblades flew out of their jackets to join them as well as a set of brass knuckles made from an iron alloy.

Crater's eyes might have been almost all pupil, but he still managed to roll them.

"Sorry boss," Trigger called from the control cab of the electromagnet. "Do you want me to let the android go?"

"Naw he's still just one man," Crater purred as he adjusted his tie and straightened his sports jacket. "We can take him. Anything you want to say, Smith?"

Roger loosened his tie. "You don't want to do this," he warned as Crater's men armed themselves with pipes and tools from nearby storage bins. In the blink of an eye they had surrounded the negotiator and were creeping towards him brandishing their improvised weapons. Roger's eyes narrowed in steely resolve.

Rather than letting them attack first, Roger made his move. He kicked the man on the right of him in the stomach before giving an identical kick to the man on his left. He ducked to avoid the pipe being swung by the man in front of him before delivering a blow to his jaw and sending him tumbling to the ground. He leaned backwards and turned to stick his elbow in the man who was lunging at his back and managed to get him in a head lock. He kicked at a second man in front of him before he finished hoisting his head locked victim over his body and headfirst onto the floor in front of him.

He ducked a blow from his left as an opponent swung a pipe that was as long as a pool cue at him before closing the distance and stepping on his assailant's foot. The man cried out as Roger seized him with one hand and used him as a shield to block a blow from an attacker with a wrench.

The negotiator leaned forward to kick at an opponent behind him before ducking low under an attacker who was coming at him with a long sweeping kick of his own. Roger karate chopped the kicker's knee and sent him spinning to the floor.

An attacker with a lead pipe moved in close so Roger caught him in a choke hold while striking him to the chest. His assailant groaned and collapsed, allowing Roger to use him as a human shield.

There was a pause as the gangsters absorbed what had just happened. Roger had absorbed a kick from an android before taking eight of their number out of the fight. And his hair wasn't messed up.

Roger threw the limp gangster at the ones in front of him before turning to kick a man behind him. Roger now had the pipe that he had confiscated from the man he had choked, but when a gangster charged him he kicked him in the chest without even needing to block with his makeshift baton.

He used it on the next man though, but when he knocked that guy senseless the gangster fell on the baton and Roger was unable to use it. Worse yet, the man was holding onto the negotiator's arm for dear life so Roger was forced to flail and kick at his attackers until he could free himself. A wide arcing kick from left to right sent a man tumbling to the ground and Roger managed to throw the man on his arm into another guy.

When Roger grabbed the weapon hand of a man with a large wrench he himself was seized from behind. Roger elbowed the opponent behind him in the face, but although the man fell back he didn't fall down and he didn't let go of Roger's blazer either. Roger shrugged off the blazer, turned and kicked the man in the ribs and then spun and caught the man's neck with his blazer to both choke and immobilize him. He had his captive pressed back to back to him while he held the sleeves of his double breasted jacket behind his neck.

Roger flipped the foe he had pinned to his back over him to block the attacks from his front, but he found himself again seized by a choke hold from behind. He elbowed his opponent in the solar plexus before pulling an arm off his neck. He then kicked the crook in the face sending him to the floor.

Roger removed his tie and held it like a garrote as a foe with a box cutter lunged at him. He caught the man around the throat before flinging him away.

Two men lunged at him. One had a long pipe that Roger seized to push them back so he could kick them. Another man with a long pipe thrust at Roger and forced him to lean back at an awkward angle to avoid being skewered.

The thrust had torn his shirt open, so Roger jumped into the air and spun three hundred and sixty degrees while removing it. He used his shirt to choke his foe while kicking at him with all his strength.

Roger's muscular arms were exposed to view but his torso was concealed by a bullet proof vest that seemed to be composed of a layer of silver dollar sized disks bound in synthetic black fabric. It was now fairly obvious why the blows to Roger's gut weren't having the effect the gangsters expected.

During the battle Jenny opened her eyes to discover that she was lying on the floor of the warehouse. When Crater's goons had stormed in they knocked her to the floor and she had hit her head. She blinked and tried to focus as Roger fought off a mob of gangsters with blinding acrobatic speed! It was amazing! How long could he keep it up? Surely those tiny robots Roger had in his cells must have gifted the negotiator with reflexes that an android would envy but it wouldn't be long before his body used up its energy. Then Roger would be history. She had to get out of here without drawing attention to herself.

By now there were less mobsters coming for him making it easier to take them one at a time. Sometimes he had ten entire feet between himself and his remaining foes before they would gather their courage and lunge for him.

"Roger!" Dorothy's voice called from above. "The sniper!"

The sniper! It would do Roger no good to drive them off because then the thug in the control cab would get him! Roger may have lost his blazer, shirt, and tie but he still had his watch. Activating a hidden stud on his watch, the negotiator sent a slender steel cable out from his wrist that wrapped around an I-beam girder that supported the roof. By reeling the line in, Roger pulled himself away from his opponents up into the roof where he could hide in the metal girders.

Trigger pointed his rifle up and fired a shot but Roger had already jumped backwards off the girder and was reeling his line out. He swung past Crater and his men and managed to get up to the control cab and punch the sniper in the jaw. Trigger clutched at his face and Roger used the opportunity to pull him out of the cab and throw him down to the floor twenty feet below.

"Unbelievable," Crater muttered.

Roger then operated the controls to move the electromagnet so that it was hanging right next to the control cab. "Ready?" he asked as he grasped Dorothy's hand. "Here goes!" He deactivated the electromagnet, sending pistols and other weapons clattering to the ground. Fortunately in that brief moment, Roger had managed to pull Dorothy into the doorway of the control cab before her weight pulled his arm out of his socket. "You alright?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," she said.

"Good," Roger nodded as he glanced over her shoulder to see the mobsters legging it to the pile of weapons at the base of the crane. "Dorothy, look at me. Whatever you do, don't look down."

"All right," she said as she looked into his eyes.

Roger was momentarily lost in her unique violet eyes that were so dark they were almost black. He was distracted for only a split second before he hit the release lever to the heavy electromagnet. "Don't look!" he cried as he hugged the android girl. The screams of the men were cut off by a loud metallic 'thud' that drowned out a hideous crunching noise. He let go of Dorothy and looked at her youthful face again. "Are you alright?"

"You asked me that before," she told him.

"Oh yeah, so I did!" he chuckled nervously.

"Dammit, you still haven't won!" Crater shouted. "I've still got Jenny! I—!" he turned and saw the door to the warehouse shut. "Jenny!" he cried as he scuttled out the door after her. "Come back here you little minx! You aren't getting away with this!"

Roger and Dorothy looked out of the control cab at a crowd of angry criminals assembled below them. Some of the guys Roger had knocked down earlier had gotten back up, but fortunately not all of them. Dorothy spoke first. "It looks like every member of Zeke Crater's gang is down there."

"Yeah," Roger nodded, "and I'm getting tired. I don't know if I can take them alone."

"You're not alone."

Roger's mouth became a little 'o', and then he smiled at her. "Ladies first."

"You're such a gentleman," she said before she jumped twenty feet to the base of the crane. She held her hands before her. Roger jumped after her and she caught his feet and pushed him up into the air again. Roger did a somersault in air as he launched himself at the gangsters. Dorothy somersaulted across the ground to close the distance with the criminals. In an instant the battle was joined.

* * *

><p>Out on the street, Jenny was trying to hotwire one of the gangster's sedans. "Come on, start!" she squawked. "Why didn't any of them leave their keys in the ignition?"<p>

"Probably because we didn't trust a little tramp like you," Crater's voice said.

"Zeke!" Jenny squeaked before she was pulled out the car. "Zeke! Don't kill me! Please don't kill me! I've got the antidote! I really do!" She reached into her purse and pulled out the syringe. "See? It's right here! Please don't kill me!"

"Why should I believe you?" Crater sneered as much as his immobile face would allow. "It's probably poison knowin' you. Besides it's no good usin' a needle," he said as he released her. "It won't be able ta penetrate my armored hide anyway. Get in the trunk Jenny. When we get home, I'm gonna kill you slow."

"There _is_ _one _place the needle will penetrate," she said coyly before she plunged the needle into his eye. He shrieked and clutched as his face while his multiple limbs flailed uselessly. "You want the serum, you got it Zeke!" the little mad scientist crowed as she back away. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! Be careful what you wish for Zeke, because you just might get it!"

"Argh!" Crater's face bust open to reveal multiple blisters bubbling on the flesh underneath. "What did you do to me?"

"Heck if I know; my brother made this formula, not I!" she chirped as she continued backing away. "I don't think there is a treatment for what's happening to you. To be honest, I didn't expect you to survive the stuff I gave you last time; I have no idea what this will do to you! Well goodbye Zeke, must dash! Write me and tell me how it all works out!" With that, she turned and trotted into the night as fast as her high heels and hobble skirt would let her.

Crater's shirt bust open to reveal writhing gray tentacles before the rest of his clothing tore open to disgorge more pseudopods. "You—crazy—witch!"

* * *

><p>Back in the warehouse Roger and Dorothy were fighting back to back. Although most of the foes Roger had fought earlier were in no condition to fight they had received reinforcements. The negotiator and the android had to close with their enemies in order to make sure that nobody could get a clear shot at them without hitting an ally. Unfortunately with undisciplined punks like these it was only a matter of time before one of them didn't care and started shooting anyway.<p>

The dynamic duo countered their disadvantage by performing acrobatic dancelike maneuvers that served the dual purpose of closing the distance and building momentum to insure the greatest impact when they struck their foes. So far the tactic had been effective. The crowd had thinned so that they were forced to hunt down the stragglers. That also meant that the gangsters who remained standing could fire with impunity.

Roger jumped to propel himself feet first at a mobster. By spreading his legs as he spun through the air he was able to kick his opponent twice before he returned to earth. He used his hand to propel himself off the ground so he could land on his feet and keep moving.

"Roger!" Dorothy cried out as she hurled herself in front of him. A gunshot echoed through the warehouse as a hole appeared in Dorothy's shoulder. The impact knocked her off her feet as she fell spinning into Roger.

"Dorothy!" Roger cried before grunting as the android's weight sent them both to the ground. He found himself sitting on the floor with the wounded android in his arms. "Dorothy! Are you all right? Speak to me!"

"Say your prayers, negotiator!" a gangster with a smoking pistol growled as he pointed it at him.

"Dorothy, I'm sorry!" Roger hugged her as he closed his eyes.

At that moment, the wall burst open and a giant gray tentacle came through in a shower of bricks. The gangsters remaining on their feet screamed and ran away, all thoughts of their prey forgotten.

"Huh?" With his arms around the injured Dorothy, Roger hit a stud on his watch. "Now Big O," he said. "It's showtime!" He pushed Dorothy off him before rising and pulling the robot girl to her feet. "Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Good 'cause I hope you can run!" he said as he held her hand and started dashing away from the writhing monstrosity that was thrashing its way into the warehouse.

When they got outside they could see the warehouse collapsing behind them to reveal a seething mass of tentacles the size of a house. "What _is_ that?" Roger asked. The creature didn't seem to fit any of the events that had happened so far.

"It reminds me of the creature that Eugene Grant turned Pero into," Dorothy said.

"Grant!" Roger grimaced. "I should've known! I wonder what was _really_ in that syringe that Jenny said contained the 'antidote'."

The ground started shaking before the street erupted to reveal a humungous black and red robot. The robot was an ungainly metal giant towering over fifty feet tall. Two vaguely humanoid legs supported its barrel shaped body. The enormous arms of the megadeus were in reality massive piledrivers with huge mechanical hands instead of chisels. The head of Big O was an impassive face that was dwarfed by the megadeus' humungous body.

As it rose from the ground the black giant held Roger and Dorothy in its cupped hand as its red collar rose to reveal a control room hidden in the chest cavity just below the robot's neck. When they entered the red tinted chamber, Dorothy leaned against the wall and held onto a support girder with her good arm. Roger sat in the cockpit and put his feet into the pedals. He crossed his arms as two curved arms ending in joysticks closed to encircle his chair. A transparent bubble closed to seal him off from the rest of the circular room. At Roger's feet were three circular monitors. The larger center screen displayed a message: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY".

As the surviving gangsters continued to flee the Big O extended its arm towards the roiling monstrosity.

"I don't know whether you're Crater or Grant but either way it's time to put you out of your misery!" Roger announced as he pulled the joystick back along the arm on his right. He let go of the joystick as it disappeared into the arm and was replaced by second one with a basket hilt and trigger. With an animal grunt he brought the joystick back to the front of the curving arm and pulled the trigger.

Big O's forearm split open like a banana to reveal four massive cannons arranged around the robot's fist. With a squeal and a whine the cannons rotated around the megadeus' spinning hand as bolts of lavender energy poured out the cannons in a thundering crescendo of fire. The blasphemous mass that was once Ezekiel Crater burst open in a pulpy mass of nauseating liquid. Soon there was nothing left of the creature but the splattered goo that covered the street.

A bulb flashed on Roger's panel as the rightmost circular screen activated to display the face Norman Burg. "Master Roger, I took the liberty of preparing a late night supper for you. It should be ready in ten minutes."

"Thanks Norman," Roger nodded as he leaned back in the cockpit and breathed a sigh of relief. "Dorothy's been injured, so if you've got time you better prepare the repair bay."

"Everything will be as you order sir," Norman said. "And Miss Dorothy may I be the first to say 'welcome home.'"

Roger looked at the miserable android girl standing next to him. Her clothes were a mess and she had lost her shoes. The back of her blouse was torn open to reveal rent bloodless flesh and punctures in her metal shoulder blades. Her shoulder had a hole in it so her left arm hung loosely at her side. "Are you all right Dorothy?"

The servos in her neck hummed quietly as she turned to face him. "I am now."

* * *

><p>On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:<p>

_Next: _It's Not Any Fun__


	12. It's Not Any Fun

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network. _

THE BIG O:

ACT 33

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

_Chapter Twelve: It's Not Any Fun_

"Norman I already told you. I don't want Roger to see me like this," the little android insisted the next morning.

"I agree with Dorothy, Norman," Roger said from just outside the door. "I really shouldn't be here."

"My apologies, Master Roger, Miss Dorothy," Norman said with a gentle but firm voice. "I was under the impression that the two of you wished to learn more about Miss Dorothy's insides so that Master Roger can maintain her when I am no longer able to. Since it seems wrong to ask Miss Dorothy to allow us to take her apart when she's whole we've had to wait for an opportunity like this to examine her."

"I don't want Roger to see me like this," she repeated. "You must admit, the visual picture will be very difficult to forget."

Dorothy was lying on her belly on a tilting table that was specifically built to support her during maintenance and repairs. The tilting table was more of a rack, for it was a framework of bars that allowed access from underneath, but now there was a surgical blanket between Dorothy and her support. The blanket she lay on only went up to her neck so her face was free and conversation was relatively easy. A second blanket covered her hindquarters and legs, but was folded back to expose her arms and torso. Exposed was the right word, for not only was she not wearing any visible clothing, her back was open exposing her mechanisms. She only had one arm attached, making her seem like a damaged classical sculpture.

"Dorothy, if it makes you feel better when you cut open a human the view is just as disturbing," Roger assured her as he peeked into the room. "Even more so actually. You have nothing to be embarrassed about."

"You wouldn't understand," she told him as Norman got to work on her shoulder.

"Actually, I would," Roger admitted as he looked away and scratched the back of his neck. "My recent experience in the country was a real eye opener."

There was a pause as the noise of Norman's power tool stopped all attempts at conversation. Then Dorothy said, "Norman, could you tilt me so that I'm facing Roger? You can come in, Roger. I don't mind."

"Are you okay with this Dorothy?" Roger asked.

"I don't mind."

"Very well Miss Dorothy," Norman nodded. "Tell you what; you can lie on your back while we work on your shoulder. You can turn back round when we repair the damage on your back."

Roger sighed as he leaned against the wall outside Norman's workshop. He had abandoned his blazer and tie and was only wearing his white shirt, black pants and shoes right now. He listened as the android rack moved and Dorothy rearranged herself. He heard the android's voice call, "Roger you can come in now."

Now Dorothy was lying on her back facing up with her good arm holding the blanket in front of her. She looked so fragile and naked lying there, and with one arm missing the view was rather macabre. Roger tried to busy himself by looking at the parts Norman had removed from her back.

"I can't get used to how many different pieces of your back there are," Roger said as he picked a piece of metal off a worktable. When Dorothy didn't respond he set it back down and muttered, "Sorry Dorothy."

"If my back was simply one large shell I wouldn't be able to move," she told him. "I'm not the same as that robot that attacked you in my father's house Roger."

"Yeah, you're a lot more complex," Roger said. "That must have been an earlier prototype. A direction he didn't take."

"It's fortunate that we have your blueprints Miss Dorothy, otherwise we'd have a difficult time knowing what goes where," Norman joked gently.

Silence.

"Ahem," Roger coughed into his fist. "Norman, where do we start?"

"Well, we're going to have replace many of the parts on her back," Norman said delicately. "Although to be honest, the parts on her back can simply be reforged back into shape. The real damage is in her glenohumeral joint, that's the multiaxial ball and socket joint at her shoulder. We're going to have to replace the base and the servos before we can reconnect Miss Dorothy's arm. Fortunately after Miss Dorothy allowed me to peruse her blueprints I started making spare parts for her so hopefully we'll be able to put her back together before the day is out."

"Roger you were saying that you understood what it's like to be hoisted up on a rack like a car in an auto shop," Dorothy prodded.

"Yeah," Roger winced. "My car…" The flattened remains of Roger's Cadillac were in the main hanger with Big O. All they could do is salvage what they could from the hopeless wreck and build another one. "My poor car…"

"Roger?" Dorothy repeated.

"What?" he blinked. "Oh yes! Well, this is kind of hard for me to admit Dorothy, but when I found Jenny Grant, she turned the tables on me."

"How so?"

"She sprayed me with some kind of fungus that almost killed me," he shuddered. "When I came to she had stripped me of my clothing and strapped me to an operating table similar to the one you're on now. Things were… very uncomfortable for a while there."

"Why did she do that?"

Roger shuddered as he decided how much to share with the innocent android. At least he hoped she was innocent. All of the creeps who had kidnapped her seemed devoted to destroying her innocence a piece at a time. "Uh… to be honest, she had a hard time deciding. She didn't know whether to treat me as test subject for her deranged experiments or as an unwilling recipient for her advances. I managed to escape before she made up her mind."

"You seem to find yourself in jeopardy a great deal Roger Smith," Dorothy said.

"What do you mean _me_?" he grimaced good-naturedly. "I don't understand how a girl with the strength of an android manages to get herself captured so easily. I thought you were stronger and faster than the rest of us, Dorothy."

"I've never been trained in self-defense," Dorothy admitted. "I just used my strength and agility to their fullest extent. And then of course there's my failsafe."

"Your failsafe?"

"In the event of a malfunction I've been built with a failsafe," Dorothy told him. "If you grasp my forearm it will send a signal to my motive unit that will paralyze me as long as it's held."

"Your forearm?" Roger blinked in disbelief. "I can't believe that," he muttered as he picked up the slender white arm that Norman had removed to work on her shoulder. "Are trying to tell me that your father built you with an on-off switch that could be controlled from the same place the bad guys grab the heroine in the movies?"

"The bad guys seize the heroine's arm?" Dorothy asked. "Why do they do that?"

"It's any easy way for a movie maker to take the girl hostage without showing excessive brutality or suggesting sexual implications," Roger said as he squeezed and fondled her forearm looking for the on/off switch. "It looks like your father watched a lot of movies. Are you sure it's the upper arm, Dorothy? I can't find it."

"You're very gullible Roger Smith," Dorothy announced. "I can see how Jenny Grant managed to put you in a compromising position."

"Keep that up and I'll swat you with your own arm," Roger muttered as he examined her disembodied arm. "Wow. Your skin… it feels so… real. So smooth. It's like silk or a baby's skin or something."

"Would you and my arm like to be alone Roger?"

"Dorothy, if you don't want me in here just say so," he grunted as he set the arm back on the table where he found it. He ran his finger along the severed arm. "Hey it moved!"

"That's not surprising," Norman muttered as he removed the damaged ball and socket joint from Dorothy's torso. "There's probably some residual power in it and the sensors in her skin registered your touch."

"She has sensors in her skin?" Roger repeated. "Dorothy, does that mean that you have a sense of touch? You can feel things?"

"Of course Roger," the girl replied. "How else would I be able to pick up a glass without breaking it? I would need some kind of way to gauge the pressure or I wouldn't be able to manipulate anything."

Roger looked at the cavity where her arm should be and thought of the damage done to her back. "Can you feel pain?"

"Yes," she admitted. "It lets me know when I need repairs. My feelings don't overwhelm me the way yours can. I can continue to function despite the distraction assuming my mechanisms still work."

"Oh! Dorothy…" Roger moaned in sympathy. "You must be in agony over there…"

"Don't worry about it."

"I can't help worrying about it," Roger grunted as he rolled up his sleeves. "Let's get you back together. Norman, I'm all yours. Tell me what to do."

"Well I suppose the first thing you can do is fire up the forge," the butler suggested.

* * *

><p>Dorothy's repairs took almost all day. Tomorrow they would rebuild the car. After dinner he went out on the rooftop patio to see Dorothy standing on the wall looking out at the sunset. "Aren't you cold?" he said as he walked over to her.<p>

"I had my back taken apart and my shoulder joint replaced," she told him. "I assure you I can take a little cold."

"Are you okay?"

"You and Norman ran several diagnostics," Dorothy said. "I was given a clean bill of health."

"No I mean emotionally," Roger clarified. "Are you all right?"

Dorothy paused as if she had to think about it. "The last two days have not been pleasant," she admitted.

"That's something of an understatement."

"I could ask you the same question," Dorothy said. "Are you all right, Roger?"

"I'll manage," he smiled with a shrug. "To tell you the truth I might be better than I was when this all started. At least I've got my priorities in order now."

"What priorities are those?"

"I'm better off protecting what I have instead of chasing what I've already lost," he said gently. "I'd like to apologize Dorothy. I shouldn't have run off looking for Memories and left you all alone. That's the second time I've done that and both times it ended in disaster."

"I don't see what you have to apologize for," she countered. "Both times you assumed that I was safe at home. It's not as if you carelessly placed me in danger. You can't protect me all the time."

"Yeah I know," he nodded. "I've been thinking about what you said. About being untrained. Would you be interested in some martial art lessons? One of the nice things about being self-employed is that I have a lot of free time between clients."

"Being martial is an art?" Dorothy asked. "Your taste in clothing isn't the only thing that's bad. I find nothing artistic about war."

"No," Roger chuckled. "I meant would you like me to train you in unarmed combat? With your strength and agility you should be a natural."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Sure, you're not going to hurt me are you?" he joked.

"Accidents can happen."

"Not to worry," Roger laughed. "Jenny Grant seemed to think that I _can't_ get hurt."

"She really thought that?"

"No," Roger stroked his chin as he tried to recall. "She seemed to think that there were little robots in me that could heal any injury with enough time, and something about food I guess. I think she meant that if I survived my wound in the first place, I'd be guaranteed a full recovery."

"Then you should have nothing to worry about."

"I'm not so sure," Roger grimaced gently.

There was a pause as they watched the sun sink into the scarred cityscape and bathe the world in a red glow. The crimson light from the sunset gave Dorothy's ivory face a pinkish tint. She looked just like a human girl. It was hard to believe that he and Norman had spent the day tinkering with her insides.

Just how human was she? She had nerve endings, or crystal nanofilaments that acted like nerve endings. She could feel. She could feel the wind whipping through her dress or the caress of a friendly hand. She could feel the spines on Crater's extra arms puncture the plates on her back and tear her synthetic flesh to ribbons. This girl had to know more about pain than anyone else he knew.

Could she feel emotions like he could? On her last night with her father, she had laughed at his joke. She was hesitant when Timothy Wayneright suggested that she get on stage and sing, almost bashful. How very unDorothy of her. When Jenny Grant's murderous brother Eugene abducted her she had gasped before she fled with Pero the kitten. If she could express her feelings why didn't she?

"Dorothy?" he said finally. "I never got a chance to know you before you were kidnapped did I?"

"Considering that we met during at my final ransom negotiation I should think that would be a given."

"I can't help thinking about the wounds Norman and I can't repair," Roger said gently. "It's a proven fact that kidnapping is one of the most psychologically damaging crimes of them all. Victims can take years to heal from the psychological wounds inflicted upon them, and some never completely recover. People who've survived akidnapping often go on to battle issues of trust for the rest of their lives. Let's face it: Being deprived of your freedom and being held against your will can erode your trust in humanity altogether. But you're not alone. Now that I've been held captive by a deranged individual myself, I've got a clear idea of what you've been going through."

"It's not any fun is it?"

"No," Roger nodded. "I'd like to go on record by apologizing for anything I might have said during your stay here. That crack about you just imitating us and your music not meaning anything was inexcusable."

"Don't worry about it."

"Dorothy if you ever want to talk about it…"

"I don't," she said. "If that changes, you'll be the first to know."

"I understand," he paused when he got no response. "No really, I _do_ understand. What that woman did to me will give me nightmares."

"I believe you."

The sun dipped lower and soon all that could be seen of it was the crimson glow in the sky. Roger shivered as a chill breeze blew but he stood his ground.

Finally he spoke. "You're actually more like a human than you let on aren't you?"

"There's no need to be insulting Roger."

"Dorothy…" he said hesitantly. "I know this is the wrong time to ask this, after everything that's happened… I know that you feel emotions differently than I do…"

"Yes?"

Can you feel love Dorothy?" he asked quietly. "I mean, can you fall in love like a human?"

I don't know," she said. "I've never been in love before. I could be in love right now and not realize it. I could ask you the same thing. Are you capable of falling in love Roger?"

"Ouch."

"I didn't mean to be insulting. It was a legitimate question."

"I know. That's why it hurt so much." He stroked his chin while he pondered her question. "Sometimes I think that I'm incapable of forming deep relationships…"

"That's a pity."

He stopped and looked over at Dorothy. In the dim light and red glow of the sunset she looked exactly like a human girl now. He smiled and walked over to her. "But you know," he said as he put an arm around her, "Since you've moved in, I've been thinking I might be able to fall in love after all."

"I'm glad to hear that," Dorothy said as she leaned against his shoulder.

_We Have Come To Terms_

* * *

><p>Dorothy and Roger sit on a large hourglass the size of a barstool. Behind them is an orange background. The sound of a piano and the duet of a man and woman singing can be heard.<p>

_Sometimes I feel so all alone_

_Finding myself callin' your name_

_When we're apart, so far away_

_Hopin' it's me that you're thinkin' of_

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._


End file.
